Confession: I might be the only person who LOVES back to school shopping. I love buying new pens. I love the smell of new notebooks. And I love the feeling of accomplishment I get by checking everything off of the list. When I finished my Bachelor’s degree and became a (partially) stay at home mom, one thing I looked forward to was the time when I would get to start doing back to school shopping again for my kids.
This year, my oldest is going in to first grade, so I was very anxiously awaiting her back to school shopping list. It finally (FINALLY!) came. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), in first grade, most of the supplies are not for your child to keep. At least in our class, they are shared with all of the students in the class. Except her backpack and lunch box, everything on the list was to be shared.
After about 10 seconds of being disappointed that I didn’t need to pick out a bunch of cute notebooks for my daughter, I realized how glad I was to be able to contribute to the class and take a little bit of the burden of buying supplies for the classroom off the teacher. According to an article from ABC news, teachers buy about 77% of the supplies for their classroom and spend an average of $448 of their own money each year on school supplies. I’ll probably feel a little different when all three of my kids are in school ($$$) but they won’t all be in elementary school for long.
If your school shopping list was a little more personalized and you would like to contribute to your child’s elementary school classroom, here are some commonly requested items that your child’s teacher would almost definitely appreciate:
- Pencils (pre-sharpened are best)
- Tissues
- Colored Pencils
- Markers
- Crayons (our teacher requested boxes of 64)
- Band-Aids
- Glue Sticks
- Ziploc sandwich & gallon-sized bags
- Paper Towels
- Baby wipes and/or Lysol wipes
Moms, are you also school shopping for your child’s classroom? If so, what are some items that you are buying ? Teachers, what do you hope parents send in?
