Sunday 25 January 2009

I'm Becoming Obsessed....

.... with 3 ring binders or folders as we call them in the UK. You see I order a fair amount of the girls curriculum from the US - you may have noticed :o) Sonlight is great because it comes with a binder for the instructors guide and I think I got a binder for science or was it language arts?? Anyway I digress, what I hadn't realised was that the US have 3 and 5 ring binders and we have 2 or 4 ring folders.

I tried re-punching the sheets and basically it made a mess and it was easy to tear. I'm a bit fussy about things like that. Hettie's Real Science 4 Kids workbooks have 3 holes punched. The problem is if you want to add any work, you need a 3 ring hole punch. OK so after chatting with some other HE mum's we decided you could make a template and use a single hole punch - I have one already, never used before - for punching additional work.

This still leaves the binder problem. Dh said just order them from Sonlight if you really need them, I think I only want about 4, but they only do blue and we like different coloured binders for subjects. Now that sounds really finicky but it helps the girls quickly find their work. Besides blue is for boys - only joking ;)

Tonight I had another brainwave! PING - Amazon. Oh goodness there's a vast array on there, with sizes in inches and all sorts. Are all US 3 ring binders the same size??? Help me out here I just want some 3 ring binders!! OK I do like the ones with the clear pocket on the front, but we can live without those.

I must have something better to be doing - aah yes a chilled glass of wine!

7 comments:

Admin said...

As a rule all 3 ring binders from the US are the same size, but beware... the paper they usually use is 'legal' sized paper. our british A4 paper is huge and sticks out top and bottom.
To punch holes I bought an adjustable hole punch (2,3,4,5,6) from US from ebay for £10

Lisa said...

LOL C - I remember you getting that, thanks for the tip, off to check paper sizes!

Mrs. Darling said...

Yep I use three ring binders for everything. I have tons of them.
Interesting that your paper is bigger. How funny. So many little things about our culture we take for granted and think is universal!

Always Learning said...

Pah - thoght I'd got this sorted and sent you a PM on the board to say so, unfortunately it's not as easy as I thought.PM'd you to say why on that too.

Thought I might ask the chap from conquest books to see if he can source any.

I know you don't like the blue ones from SL, but how much are they to send here? I've no idea.

CJ x

Always Learning said...

PS - I'm becoming obsessed too!!!

Ruth said...

Ah. I didn't mention amazon.com as I tried before and none of the sellers shiped here. I hope you got some.

Lisa said...

Thanks ladies, now I've realised about the paper size, so not decided what to do ;o)