All the buzz about Back to School buying and shopping really got me thinking and wandering. What are some products you recommend that others AVOID and why? This can (and should) include brands of pens, papers, crayons, computers, printers, ink, laminators, craft supplies, videos, books, educational "toys" and computer games and activities, magazines, outdoor gear/toys etc... The more expensive the dissatisfactory purchase, the more reason it should be noted! I hear that National Geographic for Kids is HORRIBLE, its at least 50% Ads.
I hate Fooey whiteboard markers. They're supposed to be wipe-off, but they don't. I've also decided I'm not buying the expensive brand whiteboard cleaner because plain white rubbing alcohol does just fine. I've decided I'm not going to buy any more off-brand crayons. They're just not as good as Crayola! Most of the others are just too waxy, or streaky, or they crumble, don't cover well, and I find the tones/hues can be a little "off". EXCEPT for Prang! which are excellent, but pricey! I've decided not to waste money on fancy sparkly "prize" pencils, because the cheaper they are, the more you have to grind them down and don't get full use of them - cheap wood, cheap graphite, always breaking, splitting, etc. I can make do with the Dixon yellow-orange ones, or the red/blue/green/purple ones, but the Ticonderoga are the best I've found (either yellow or black), because they do what they were made to do.
Any crayons and colored pencils that aren't crayola are a waste of money IMO, the colors just aren't the same, and they don't cover evenly. I also find that premade flashcards are a waste as well, I prefer to make my own to do just what I want them to do. Peterson directed handwriting was my worst curriculum purchase so far, it was a huge waste of 40.00 because my boys hated it, it moved too slowly, and they were mostly beyond it when I bought it.
Wait now have you ever noticed how Crayola pencil crayons are constantly snapping in the pencil sharpener? I go through them too much. I bought Steadler's erasable pencil crayons and love them! I also think Laurentian makes a good pencil crayon. Good to know about the white board cleaner. I have just been wiping mine with kleenex and it needs a deep clean. So I think I will try the rubbing alcohol. Also if you get a permanent marker on your white board by mistake :O try going over it with a regular white board marker then wiping. It's chemicals seem to dissolve the other ink. Of course do it asap!
Wow, really?! We borrowed the VHS and activity booklet from the library, it was a hit with all 3 of my students. 6yo has even asked me to consider buying it! I was actually considering getting the DVD version. I wander if it has better sound quality... Does anyone know? Hooked On (Insert Langauge here) now, THERE, is a collasol waste of time and money! *Grrr* I have all 3 levels of HOFrench and its the most ridiculous thing...At least Muzzy has a BUNCH of vocab, audio and a workbooks that actually include the target language. Thats right. HOFRench workbook (if you can call it that) doesn't even have French in it!!!!
I was not going to say what curriculum was a waste of money but I want to hear what other people have to say. So here are a couple of curriculums that was a waste of money. Also, cheap markers are a waste. Understanding Writing was a waste of money for us because a large part of the writing is writing letters to friends and family. My family NEVER responded to the letters that my daughter wrote. It was discouraging. It was expensive too. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Geography by Runkle was a waste for us because much of what was covered in the book we already covered in science and it is textbook learning. Boring. Geography can be much more exciting than that. The book does have a lot of hands-on experiments but many of them did not interest me. AIMS books. Not sure why they did not work for us. I love the idea behind them. There are tons of hands-on activities which I love. The Bat book by AIMS I did love
I do have some expo white board cleaner but sometimes I just use a clorox wipe (I keep them in the classroom to wipe the table down-tried it on a white board-worked great!) I mainly use the white board cleaner on my notebook I use sheet protectors and use dry erase ont hem to mark off my daily lists Only buy crayola crayons here as well. We buy mostly crayola for all that child's art supplies stuff-some things I will buy off brand-but if I want washable (for the 3 year old) it HAS to be Crayola-the cheap washables aren't washable-my 3 year old went around with generic WASHABLE marker on his face for over a week once cause it wouldn't wash off! LOL Only buy the expo dry erase markers as well (the others don't wipe off as they should) This DVD was horrid http://gapeachhomeschool.wordpress....rn-soup-stories-how-letters-become-words-dvd/ I'll never buy another lexmark product in my life! They put microchips in their ink cartridges so you can't refill them (even if you don't damage the chip-the chip reads empty once you print so much-even if you filled it back up-once it reads empty it won't print anymore!)
I had the Mandarin version and it was pretty much $$$ for a 1980's cartoon in English and Mandarin. They had an additional DVD on vocabulary, but no workbook and no CD-Rom. There are soooo many better resources out there. Even watching Mulan in Mandarin is better!
I think that is funny how many of these I do as well. I only like the crayola crayons too. I haven't found colored pencils I like yet. I also agree with the expo brand dry erase markers, cheap pencils, and pre-made flash cards too. The flexible rulers from Walgreen, they get a bend in them then you can't measure correctly. I also got a hold of cheap sticky notes, they don't stick!! What is the use of sticky notes that don't stick? My kids loved them. I was also going to say that I have a canon mp 530 printer and I love it, each color ink has its own cartridge so you only have to replace the one that is empty. And it will print in black with the other colors empty!!! They have a chip but you can get a generic ink off eBay for like $12 for two of the big black ones, and they last a long time. I have had the printer for 3 years and replace the black about once a year. I use it for our business ( lots of printing) and HS (lots of printing). It was starting to act up, and I got upset, I don't know what I would do without it. But found out that my ds had shoved a crayon ( cheap brand one LOL) into the place where the paper is suppose to come out.
Someone here-I want to say Sommer or Jackie...but I could be wrong LOL told me about a duplex printer that you can get ink cartridges for for about $2 on ebay! I dream about this printer now! LOL (along with a laminating machine and about 1,000 velcro dots!!!!! LOL) My lexmark refills (for a black and all 3 colors) runs about $100 in office supply stores
I won't say the Abeka kit or the ETC books were the worst products I ever bought, because I loved them. HOWEVER!, not doing a level assessment before buying was a waste of about $500, because the stuff I bought was way too easy and I had to start from scratch. It's worth $20-30 to figure out what your kid already knows than to keep buying one thing after another trying to figure it out on your own. Also a crayola fan here. Wish I hadn't bought so many of those little "step" readers at walmart over the years. There's a heck of a lot better reading material out there for way cheaper (even those same books at used bookstores are better). Another newbie mistake I made was to go through all my books at the beginning of the year and buy EVERYTHING listed in the supply lists. :roll: We ended up not using most of it because we either ditched the book or skipped the activities/experiments for whatever reason.
I've discovered that when "deep cleaning" the whiteboard with rubbing alcohol, it's good to go over the board again once it's clean with a soft cloth and kinda "buff and polish" it. Some alcohols apparently have something else in them - contaminants? other ingredients? - that leaves a film after the alcohol dries... I have used papertowels, but these aren't good for whiteboards like they're not good for your eyeglasses because they can leave behind microscratches that collect dust. I've also discovered that it really pays to wash out your erasers every so often....
I thought of another bad purchase I made...flexible rulers big mistake, they are very flexible but if they aren't stored completely flat they "hold" the bended shape and are next to impossible for my boys to get straight lines with. I much prefer the old fashioned wooden rulers I get at Target for .50
I can't say right off that I've bought anything that turned out to be horrible! However, I have bought a few things that simply did not work for us, like R&S 4th grade handwriting - the program is Palmer, which is taught to be SO small, with a five-line practice paper.... just not going to work for us! Wouldn't have been so bad, but I bought so much of it :"(
I will never buy another Dell Laptop....I had a brand new one for less than a year, still under warrenty, and had so many problems with it. One day I turned it on and there were lines covering half the screen, my kids say they didn't drop it, but who knows. Anyway I sent it into Dell to have it fixed, like I said still under warrenty and they said that it was dropped, so it wasn't covered, so I asked how much it would be to fix it, and they told me $495.00, I only paid $325.00 for it new! I told them nevermind, just send it back. A friend of mine, told me to just take it apart and make sure all the connections were tight, and WALAA! It was fixed! For free! Also had a problem with where you plug in the charger, it won't charge anymore, and the charger itself fell apart. It's ashame, because I loved that laptop, but didn't like the problems or the customer service.
