When DS, now in year 9, was about to start secondary school, we bought him all the required stationery that was specified by the school. He wasn't interested in any of it apart from the Bic 4-colour pens and Frixion erasable pens. Within one term much of it was lost or broken and he has happily survived with a couple of pens in his pocket.
DD is about to start year 7 in September and is so excited about all of the stationery. She has just had her birthday and chose a pencil case with various compartments, pen loops etc and a huge set of highlighter pens. We have bought her the required calculator, geometry set and various pens & pencils. She already has a huge collection of Legami pens, novelty erasers & pencil sharpeners, post-it notes and goodness knows what else!
If pencil case arranging was an Olympic sport, DD would be a gold medallist!!! She, and her friends, spend ages arranging their pencil cases to maximum aesthetic effect and it's lovely to see how enthusiastic they are about it all
So my question is does this last? Have you experienced the same differences between your DS's and DD's? Did your DD's end their school days with enough stationery in their pencil cases to stock a small branch of Ryman's? Or is this something that tweens grow out of?