School Supplies

What do you do with all of the school supplies your students bring in at the beginning of the year? On our grade level's school supply list this year, we ask students to bring in:

2 boxes of pencils
2 packs of paper
1 3-ring binder
1 package of dividers
2 packages of Expo markers
Clorox wipes
Germ X
Tissue

We use to ask for glue, crayons, and scissors, but these are uncertain economic times and we are trying to help parents out. We ordered these with our supplies.

The question is what do you do with all of the supplies kids bring in? I don't know about your classroom, but mine is usually overrun on the first day of school with supplies. I have piles of tissue boxes, paper, pencils, Germ X . . .  and my classroom has little, more like no storage.

I team teach with two other ladies and we all have different ways of dealing with the abundance of supplies:

1. Have the students take everything home, except the hand sanitizer, tissue, and wipes and let them bring in stuff as they need it.
(I tried that before but needless to say the stuff never made it back to school and I ended up supplying things from Christmas to the end of the year).

2. Have supply cubbies for each student and let them keep all of their supplies there to pull out when needed.
(This sounds like a good idea. The problem I have is that I don't have cubbies and what about those kids who never, ever bring in supplies. Do they just not have paper?)

3. This final one is my solution. I take up everything, except for the binders and dividers. I have storage bins where I keep all of the paper, markers, and pencils. Once they bring it in, it now belongs to the class. When someone needs paper, they just go to the bin and get some. We don't have a discussion. I don't get aggravated about them not having supplies, and they don't get embarrassed because their parents never bought them any. They just go get what they need when they need it.

I did this last year and actually have an abundance of supplies left over. I only had to ask students to bring in Expo markers during the year, and that is only because we use them all day long.

So what is your solution? What do you do with all of the supplies?