10 Teacher Wish List Items I Love

I have had this sharpener in my classroom since year 2 of teaching. It’s been 6 years since then and there is no stopping it. It’s survived kids trying to be funny and sharpen the erasers of their pencils, frustrated students who jam in their pencils too hard, and daily use (almost every class period). This is by far one of my favorite purchases I ever made for my classroom and it should be one of the top items on your Amazon teacher wish list.

As teachers, we deal with a TON of papers. Trying to keep them organized and accessible to students is SO important. I can’t tell you how many times a student has asked for a copy of something and though I just made copies, I can’t find it in my stacks of papers. No more!

This hanging organizer is one of my favorite ways to organize handouts, syllabi, parent permission slips, rubrics, and so many other things. It also comes with door hangers (to use that empty space!!) and has pockets at the bottom of it (which I have used for my middle schoolers to leave their cellphones in during class or to hold paperclips for the papers). I love this thing!

I love this cart so much I bought one for my home office. This is an easy cart for storing student-accessible supplies.

It’s open so there are no drawers and students can easily put supplies away (it fits lots of different sizes of bins).

I make sure to leave it by my bathroom passes with a bottle of hand sanitizer on top that students use when they come back.

In my music classroom, students don’t have desks. Whenever they need to do work, I’ll have them grab their clipboard with their number on it (that way if things start getting scratched into them or they start getting destroyed, I know who to talk to.) You’ll also need bulk whiteboard markers that don’t make you want to pull your hair out. I’ve got you covered…

In music, we do a LOT of writing. Nothing is worse than students forgetting a pencil and the big process to get one to them (which completely derails an activity quickly). I decided a long time ago that my kids have hard enough lives (Title 1) that they don’t need a lecture from a teacher for a pencil. I’d rather give them a pencil and keep that relationship. These pencils are CHEAPER than dollar store pencils (it’s TRUE!) and they come pre-sharpened (and they’re actually decent pencils!)

Me & My Big Ideas (MAMBI) planners have long been my favorite physical teacher planners because they’re printed in gorgeous full-color. Unlike other planners like Recollections (at Michaels) or Erin Condren planners which are spiral bound, the MAMBI rings allow you to re-organize your planner, remove pages, or add in additional pages. They even sell their hole-punch so you can add in your own planner pages.

I’m a huge fan of planners that coordinate with stickers and other accessories. MAMBI has SO many to choose from. My favorite stickers are their General Teacher Stickers & Seasonal Stickers packs and I love their Accessory Pack too.

This little light box is one of the MOST essential items to me on my Amazon teacher wish list. I’m someone who struggled BIG-TIME with S.A.D (seasonal-affective disorder) and I need no extra push to start spiraling into depression and anxiety. A closed-off classroom with no windows doesn’t do my depression any favors. This little light box is AMAZING. It mimics the natural bright sunlight with a brightness level of 10000LUX (the level that’s most recommended). It’s LED and doesn’t give off any UV-radiation. You can read more about light therapy HERE.

There are three brightness levels, 10 minute increment timers (or manual on/off). I leave this on my desk and use it as soon as I get to school and during my plan times when I need an extra boost of “sunshine.” This is one of those products that quite literally changed my life because it aids in the inner-workings of my emotional brain. Does it stop my depression completely? No. But I definitely can feel a difference in that the dark dreary winter weeks don’t spiral me like they used to, in addition to feeling more awake.

If you’d like more tips on how I deal with stress, I wrote about it here.