Back to School Must-Haves Printables, Pens, and Planners
Back to school must-have printables, pens and planners.
It's that time of the year again when we're gathering all our supplies for the
return to school. A new trend on track is now printing your own notebook
pages, with exactly the right content on them to make studying and taking
notes easier than using a traditional notebook.
In this blog post, I'll share my go-to printable note pages from Cathy's Templates and a few must-have supplies for the coming school year.
Table of Contents
School Planner by Coole School™
I usually make my own planners using my own templates and printables which work best for me. But when it comes to school planners for children, I did shop around. I looked through tens of different school planners available and found one in particular that had everything I was looking for.
Essentially I set out to look for a planner that had the following features:
- Spiral bound
- Included individual monthly calendars for reference
- Used a weekly format
- Vertical matrix for the days of the week
- Horizontal matrix for subjects
- Space for Saturday and Sunday
In all, I wasn't just looking for a planner to jot down course schedules
with times and days for when to attend classes. I was looking for a
comprehensive planner to jot down required work for, projects, essays,
reports, lessons, and all other work where they could be categorized by due
dates and class.
I found a school planner by Coole School™. It checked all the boxes and even went above and beyond by offering space for parents to sign off on work done each day and jot down any after-school activities planned. There's even an area to mark off student conduct that day, whether exemplary, satisfactory, or unsatisfactory. Also included are dedicated spaces to checkmark every assignment completed.
The back of the planner also includes different reference information for the following subjects:
- Math: Multiplication table, a ruler for centimeters in inches, mathematical equations and references
- Science: The periodic table of elements and skeletal anatomy
- Social Studies: A list of presidents of the United States of America and their terms served up to the current president, the preamble to the constitution, the United States Government Branches
- Language Arts: References for punctuation, the parts of speech, homophones, letter and essay writing
Printable School/Study Note Sheets
I created printable school note sheets for my Etsy shop because I constantly found myself needing to organize my notes in a consistent way. I found that using a printable would be much easier than constantly labeling my pages with what my notes were for.Printable University Note Pages Gray
The
Principal University Note Pages in Gray
are a wonderful option for those looking for a neutral set of printable
note pages for use in an 8.5 by 11 binder. This allows you to create
your own planner for school, and they work great for middle school
through to university.
Printable University Note Pages Colors
The
Printable University Note Pages in Colors
is an alternative to the neutral gray printable university note pages,
and they offer more customizable planner options. This pack includes all
six note-taking sheets from the gray pack in six different colors, so
a total of 42 different sheets.
Printable Cornell Note Sheets
These printable note pages feature Cornell note sheets, which is the
preferred note-taking system by universities and colleges for
compartmentalized note-taking. Write out the course, topic, details,
key points, and questions on these sheets for anything you're taking
notes on.
Printable Study Note Sheets
The printable study note pages allow you to compartmentalize what
you've read, with space available to jot down the chapters and pages
where you read it, the topic, and its relevance to your work, essay,
or report. As with all the pages, there is space to include which
class it's for, the instructor, and additional notes.
Printable Course Note Sheets
Course note sheets are designed to offer you a neat space to write
down important information about your courses, including your
instructor's name, contact information, syllabi information, materials
needed, required readings, and more. I found this information
especially helpful for homeschooling parents and students as well as
university students.
Printable Citation Planner
Creating citations can be difficult, and you don't always have a
citation tool on hand or a reference book. The source citation note
sheet is designed to allow you to jot down all the important
information for sources you've used in essays or reports in an
at-a-glance manner. This is useful for taking with you to a library or
jotting down source information as you gather it online. Later, when
you have more time, you can reference your citation manual style book
or tool and input the information you wrote down for each label. By
far, this is one of the most useful printables I have ever created.
The citation note sheets allow you to jot down the course, instructor,
and project for which you are taking citation notes. Furthermore,
there is space to write down the name of the website, publisher,
article title, and author. You can also write out the date it was
published and the date you retrieved it, the URL, and your selected
notes and quotes.
At the bottom, you can write out the relevance to your report to
ensure you're only gathering information that is pertinent to your
project and plan out the points you would like to make in your report
or essay. I've also included checkboxes to mark them off as you make
those points, so you don't forget anything in your final report.
Printable Lecture Notes
Also included are two different versions of lecture notes. The block
version utilizes an unlined format for free writing your notes within
each section. The lined version keeps notes organized and neat. There
is space for jotting down the topics of lectures and important details
for each topic covered.
Best Gel Pens for School
Pilot Frixion Gel Pens (The Official S.T.E.M. Pen)
Another product from Pilot that I would absolutely recommend to anyone
needing to take notes with accuracy is the Pilot Frixion gel pens.
These gel pens are touted as the official S.T.E.M pens because they
feature thermo erasable ink. These pens come in a variety of colors,
similar to the Pilot G2 collections. They write smoothly, and I would
even say they glide across paper.
The thermal erasable ink is 100% heat-based, so ink erases cleanly
without destroying the paper. Each pen comes with a rubber-like eraser
either on the cap, or if it's a clicker pen, on the back. Applying
friction to the paper heats up the area where the ink has been
applied, causing it to erase invisibly.
I found that the
Pilot Frixion Color Sticks
are best for younger children, including elementary and middle school
students because they come in fun colors and feature thinner, simple
barrels comparable to a pencil’s width. These also fit nicely in
pouches.
For all other uses, I find that the Pilot Frixion Synergy and the Pilot Friction Clicker Erasable Gel Pens pens offer a more professional writing instrument with precision tips and the ability to erase mistakes.
Pilot G2 Gel Pens
Pilot G2 pens are my go-to gel pens for everyday writing. The array of
colors makes categorizing and organizing notes and planners
effortless. The wider barrel makes taking notes for a long period of
time comfortable, and these pens wright smoothly on almost any paper
surface.
I recently
tested and reviewed
the
Pilot G2 Limited Edition Harmony Collection
pens, and found that they performed wonderfully for all of my
printables on 24 lb and 28 lb Astrobrights paper. I also own Pilot G2
pens in the
Neon and
Brights collection, and my most-used G2 is the Flagship
Pilot G2 Black
pen.
I consider these pens must-have writing instruments for school, because they make keeping track of individual notes easier, and categorizing notes by class, subject, and type makes planning out your day in a planner much more efficient.
I've tested these pens out on both higher-end planners, inexpensive
school planners with thinner paper, and my go-to 24-lb and 28-lb
Astrobrights paper. In every test, Pilot G2 gel pens prove that
they do not bleed through planner pages, notebook paper,
general 20-lb copy paper, 24-lb or 28-lb paper.
Best Highlighters for School (Sharpie, BIC, and Zebra)
While I find that you can't go wrong with a
BIC fluorescent Brite Liner highlighter, because of its superior no-bleed formula and lighter pigment. But I
find that Sharpie highlighter color options are more widely available
than BIC's color lineup.
Sharpie highlighters come in a variety of collections. The
fluorescent Sharpie highlighter
colors include yellow, blue, orange, pink, and sometimes purple. But
Sharpie also has a 12-pk pastel highlighter collection
that includes 6 fluorescent colors and 6 pastel colors in the same hues,
which are pink, purple, orange, yellow, green, and blue.
BIC also has a competing
Marking Grip highlighter collection
in the same hues. But I've only ever come across them online. So they
aren't as reliable to find.
I found that using Sharpie highlighters to color-code notes and planner
pages is more efficient than using BIC highlighters, which are usually
only found in 5 fluorescent colors (blue, yellow, orange, pink, and
green).
Sharpie S Note Markers vs. Zebra Midliners
Now, Sharpie does have their new midliner collection called the
Sharpie S Note markers. These are a cross between a highlighter and a marker and come in a
complete total of 36 pastel colors. Their biggest competitor at the
moment is the
Zebra midliner,
which comes in 30 pastel colors. Both of these take highlighters for
note-taking to outer space, with the amount of categorizing you can
do.
However, I have found that the Sharpie S Note highlighters are highly
pigmented, which makes reading through them a bit difficult when using
darker colors. This deep pigmentation also means that they will bleed
through most paper, even though their package says they are no-bleed
highlighters.
So, if you're using highlighters for general note-taking purposes, and
you're going to be using general notebook paper, or your average 20-lb
copy paper, I would say go with the Sharpie pastel collection for
in-depth organization or the
BIC fluorescent collection
for general highlighting.
If you plan on using highlighters as an art medium, then I would go with
the
Sharpie S Note highlighters, or the tried and true
Zebra midliners.
Fineliners That Won't Bleed Through Paper
For bullet journaling and planners, most people fall back on a no-bleed
fineliner, which is a felt tip marker designed to offer the color
options and pigmentation of markers but in a very fine tip and a
no-bleed formula.
There are a lot of fineliners out there, but I have found that there are
three specific brands that offer fineliners that genuinely do not bleed
through paper, and I have tried them all.
One of the most prevalent problems I have seen are shoppers trying to
find an alternative to more expensive fineliners and finding companies
that promise no-bleed fineliners. These usually turn out to be just thin
versions of regular markers, or inferior quality fineliners that just
bleed straight through any paper you use it on, or at least the general
20-lb paper or notebook paper that most people use.
I've even tried most fineliners on thinner and thicker paper, including
24 lb, 28 lb, and cardstock. In every single test, I came back to the
same three brands.
Sharpie Felt Tip Pens
Sharpie Felt Tip Pens
began years ago and were first advertised as fine tip felt pens
instead of fineliners. And years ago they did act more like pens than
they did fineliners, which is why I loved them so much. But nowadays
the Sharpie Felt Tip Pens you find on the market behave more like
fineliners in that their ink is way more pigmented, and the felt tip
is rougher on the paper.
I'm not necessarily in love with the way these pens are currently manufactured, but I can say that they are still 100% no-bleed pens, which makes using them for planners and taking color-coded notes awesome. They feature a thinner barrel than most fineliners because they have a pen-like structure. I would recommend these pens to anyone who needs a fineliner that functions more like a pen.
I have noticed that Sharpie tends market these as art pens now, so I
don't believe they'll ever go back to the way they used to be. The older
Sharpie Felt Tip Pens
glided over the page like butter, and they had a bright, yet light,
pigmentation. Now they are rougher on the page, as I mentioned, and
feature darker pigmentation. Still, I have all 24 colors in my
collection.
Papermate Flair Felt Tip Pens
Papermate Flair
felt tip pens were my introduction to fineliners years ago. They are the
go-to fineliner for most individuals who use fineliners. I have never
found a problem with them bleeding through any of the paper that I
use.
I have found a few have dried up on me faster than they should have, but
that comes down to
how you store your pens.
Fineliners are felt tip pens, which means they need to be stored upside
down. I have a tendency to store my pens upright.
All-in-all
Papermate Flair
felt tip pens are writing instruments that I would recommend to anyone
bullet journaling or individuals who color-code planners such as
teachers, professors, administrators, and just anyone in general who
needs to color-code their planner.
Pilot Frixion Fineliner Erasable Marker Pens
Going back to Pilot collections, the
Pilot Frixion Fineliner Erasable Marker
is a Pilot's S.T.E.M.-friendly alternative to a fineliner. Almost all
fine liners on the market are not erasable, and this means that most
people in S.T.E.M. professions have had to settle for using pens, even
for applications where a fineliner would be more efficient because they
draw broader lines and have a completely different makeup.
Pilot's Frixion Fineliners are erasable just like their color sticks and clicker pens. The ink is also thermal reactive, so it becomes invisible with the application of heat through friction rather than relying on traditional rubber-based erasers that eat through the paper.
I would recommend
Pilot Frixion Fineliner Erasable Markers
for individuals who would like the concept of bullet journaling, which
features customizing notes and planner pages, for applications in
high-accuracy careers and activities centered around niches like
engineering, the sciences, and math.
When it comes to fineliner markers you can't go wrong with
Sharpie Felt Tip Pens,
Paper Mate Flair
felt tip markers, and
Frixion Fineliner Erasable Markers.
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