transform old stationery and binders into personalized pieces that look brand new! Pay a visit to your local arts and craft store and pick up some supplies such as colored sheets of paper, paint and washi tape. Like I always say, ‘why buy it when you can DIY it?’
2.Buy your textbooks second hand. See whether someone in the year above you is looking to sell his or her textbooks from the previous year or even consider purchasing second hand books off a website.
3.Speak to someone in the year above you and find out if it is unlikely that you will be using any of your textbooks for extended periods of time. If you aren’t going to need the textbook for very long, borrow it from the school library and photocopy the necessary chapters.
| ~ Use my back-to-school supplies shopping list as a guide for buying all of the necessary items you will need to stay organized throughout the new school year. Tick off any items you already have from the previous year, before heading to your office supply store and beginning to work your way down the list! ~ |
The Great Debate: Binders Vs. Folders
The need for new school supplies always seems to spark interest in the ongoing debate of whether it is best to use binders or folders in high school when trying to stay organized. On top of this, there is the question of whether having a separate binder or folder for each subject is preferable to having one that can be used for all subjects.
To answer the first question, it’s important to highlight both the benefits and the limitations of binders and folders. While each makes for excellent storage and organization solutions for all of your class notes and handouts, they do differ significantly in a couple of areas. Unlike folders, using binders will also give you the option of writing your notes on loose sheets of paper. If you happen to take a lot of detailed notes in class, then you can add more sheets of paper to your binder as you go, rather than needing to purchase a second notebook later in the year. This does mean that you will need to take your binder home each night to complete your homework – something some students perceive as an inconvenience. In addition to the flexibility of adding pages to your binder, you also have the option of clipping and carrying accessories inside, such as ring bound compatible pencil cases and rulers. If you are one to often forget to bring your pencil case and important stationery to class then this is a big plus! While binders do make for convenient storage solutions for carrying all of your notes and stationery essentials, their ability to hold all of your handouts is limited. In contrast, using a folder can often provide you with greater storage space for handouts and articles. Accordion or expandable folders are best because you can categorize your work according to the subtopics you are learning in class.
As for determining whether to keep a separate folder or binder for each subject, ultimately, the choice is yours. If you tend to get lots of handouts that need to be filed for each subject or repeatedly find yourself adding to your set of detailed notes, then it might be worthwhile to keep a separate folder or binder for each of your subjects. This way, all of your notes and handouts will be carefully organized and you can avoid having to resort to cramming all of your many papers inside!
Out With The Old And In With The New
Apart from needing to decide on how you plan to organize your work throughout the year, it’s also important to spend some time organizing last year’s notes. As you enter high school, the workload is known to become increasingly complex and the amount of notes and handouts you receive will likely grow as well. With each year that you progress forward along your academic journey, you will no doubt notice your teachers building on the material and skills that you learned during the previous year. For this reason, I highly recommend holding onto your old class notes. While some students do, others admit to throwing out their old class notes or even confessing to tearing out pages as a means for stress relief following their end of year exams. I was not one of them. In fact, ever since my kindergarten teacher sent me home with my first finger painting, my mother has made it her mission to create what looks a lot like a shrine to commemorate all of my work from school!
While it’s certainly not necessary to keep notes from as long ago as your primary school years, it can serve you well in the future to organize and hold onto the notes you take in high school. Keep your notes for at least one to two years in case you need to refer back to them in the future. Set aside as little as one afternoon during the holidays to sort through your old class notes and file them somewhere safe. If you have typed your notes, it can be useful to have them bound and neatly organized into one book that you can easily flip through. Folders make for convenient storage solutions for all of your loose handouts, while you might like to keep your old notebooks organized in a set of magazine racks or line them up next to each other in your closet.
Getting A Head Start
Another important part of preparing for a new school year involves familiarizing yourself with your class texts. Use your spare time wisely during the holidays and consider opting for one of your class texts as your book of choice for the month. Make it an enjoyable exercise by setting aside some time each week to sit on the couch curled up with a cup of tea, or for those of you who are fortunate enough to spend your holidays somewhere warmer, by the pool or lying on the beach. Reading your texts in advance will give you a competitive edge, freeing up your time during the semester and allowing you to focus less on the specific outcomes in the book and more on analyzing the characters and key underlying themes throughout the story!
I’ve always had a love for performing; getting up on stage, singing, dancing and acting in front of crowds of people. It’s no wonder I spent most of my teenage years pursuing a career in dance. Somehow, I continually managed to schedule my jazz, ballet and tap classes around my increasingly demanding school calendar. Looking back, some of my most treasured memories from school involved performing. In fact, one of my mother’s favorite stories to tell at the dinner table involves my first ever performance at my school soirée. I was six years old at the time and my class was asked to put on a short dance. Being my stubborn self and also unable to control the music and rhythm that was coursing through my little body, I decided to scrap the choreography my teacher had taught us and showcase my own dance moves halfway through the performance. There I was, bopping and grooving to the music, heading towards stage left and moving further and further away from my classmates! Lucky for me, the event has been documented in a series of photos, so that I will never forget it.
From my debut solo-esqué performance in first grade, to later choreographing the dances for my middle school play, being involved in different events was something that played a significant role in shaping my school experience. Every semester, the excitement and feelings of anticipation would resurface with each new application that was pinned on the school notice board. Sometimes, I was eager to make a specific role, however no role was too small to me. In fact, one year I was assigned the role of a lobster in a dance number that my drama teacher somehow viewed as an artistic take on the ten plagues in the story of Moses and the Pharaoh… Whatever the opportunity, my friends and I always jumped at the chance to be part of the school plays and one year, we even collaborated to write the script!
I didn’t just see these events as a chance to showcase my talents. They were opportunities to spend time with my closest friends and even form bonds with other students; students that I wouldn’t have normally socialized with during my lunch breaks when my friends and I would sit on the benches and catch up on the latest news and dare I say, gossip. Sometimes, when rehearsals ran late into the evenings, we would all walk down the street and grab
