I’m a mom of 3 school-aged children and I still haven’t learned my lesson on back to school shopping. Instead of making a list, checking it twice and heading out as soon as the school supplies hit the shelves of my local big box store, I wait until the very last weekend (and sometimes beyond).
Every. Single. School Year.
But when I’m finally brave enough to hit the back to school sales, I make up for my procrastination by doing these nine super smart things while picking up every single item on my kids’ school supplies list.
It took the first few years of sending my first born to school (she’s in grade 8 now) to figure out the ridiculousness of sending her on the first day with a backpack full of shiny new school supplies only to realize on day one of homework that we didn’t have a single pencil or eraser in the house! This is easily solved by what my kids now call “The Homework Basket”.
When shopping for school supplies be sure to pick up a few extras and make a designated homework basket for your home.
In our homework basket we keep:
I don’t know about you, but it feels like every single day my kids need me to send money to school for something. At the beginning of the year it’s for agendas and “class funds” and then it moves into field trips, crazy hair days, bake sales and book fairs. When you’re back to school shopping and the cashier asks you if you’d like cash back say yes! Then hope he doesn’t roll his eyes when you ask for $20 in loonies and toonies. Put this money in a designated jar in your kitchen and when “wear your hat day” rolls around you’ll just reach for your change instead of trying to figure out how to hit the ATM before the school bus comes.
I know we all know this and yet somehow on the first day of school we’re still in “summer mode” and wondering how we can put a freeze in our kid’s lunch box (just me?). I like to hit the big-box store and stock up on all my kids’ favourite snacks from granola bars, yogurt, crackers, dried fruit, etc… I find that somehow going from summer snacking to being ready by 7am with a lunchbox full of snacks is a lot easier when I’ve made a plan to stock-up before the first day of school.
Once you’ve stocked-up on your school snacks, pick-up a plastic container (a large sized one) or a cookie tin and stock it full of the things you want your kids to eat while on the road driving to and from school and activities. I always have almonds, granola bars, dried fruit, individual sized bags of crackers and other snacks I know my kids will eat stashed into a rectangular plastic re-usable container. I keep it in my pantry and replenish as needed.
This “snack bin” as my kids and their friends call it, makes it easy to grab and go when you’re running late and toss into the back seat so the kids can fend for themselves. Also, you’ll look like the most prepared car pool mom ever, even though you totally forgot it was your day to drive until the calendar appointment popped up on your phone!
Speaking of school snacks, when you’re stocking up be sure to have the kids pick out a few boxes of their favourite snacks and juice boxes to donate to the local food bank. This is a great chance to remind our kids that not all families can afford pre-packaged treats and gives them the opportunity to make another child’s lunch box extra special.
If your kids are like mine, what worked last year for school lunches probably won’t work this year so spend some time talking to your kids about what they’d like to see when they open their lunchboxes and how they can help. Then pick-up what you need when back to school shopping to help make that happen. For example, you’ll need an easy to open thermos for warm leftovers, ice packs to keep salads and sandwiches cold, chop sticks for vegetable sushi, etc… Talking to your kids about school lunches before the first day of school is also a great time to set expectations on trying new foods and reminding them what’s reasonable to expect in their lunch and what’s not.
It’s always the little snack sized plastic containers that go missing (or at least just their lids) and often what looks like a full drawer of plastic containers is really just a mishmash of containers and lids that don’t actually match. Before heading out for back to school, inventory your lunch containers, see what you need and pick them up one aisle over from the pencil crayons.
It doesn’t have to be expensive, but based on my experience, the day you decide to leave your kid’s lunchbox in their school bag overnight is the day their thermos spilled all over the inside and you no longer have enough time to wash and dry it before having to pack it up again and rush out the door.
For kids who are slow to get organized, slow to get ready or just plain slow to get out the door in the morning, a 5-drawer plastic organizer or even a canvas shelf with 5 compartments that hangs in the closet can be a life saver. By spending a bit of time on the weekend organizing what each of the kids (or just the one that needs a little extra time in the morning) is going to wear to school each day of the coming week can save on average (in my purely scientific mom calculations) approximately 15 minutes every single school morning. Not to mention countless meltdowns.
Simply pick out pants, a shirt, socks, underwear and whatever else your child will wear that day and put one complete outfit in each drawer/on each shelf. Then all your child has to do in the morning is go to the drawer and put on everything that’s in it.
Maija is a busy mom to three busy children – children who insist on eating every day. Between shuttling kids to dance or cheer practice, tae kwon do, hockey, or baseball, she often finds herself in the kitchen looking at three hungry children (and a husband) and a clock ticking towards dinner time.
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