As a Mom of 3, I know which Essential Class Supplies are on the optional school supply list every year. These items never change. Staples that every teacher we have had – has requested – in day 1 of school paperwork (it’s not mandatory – but the teacher does make it clear that these essential class supplies are very much appreciated as class donations). Here are my 4 Essential Class Supplies…
Essential Class Supplies
- Washable markers (Crayola are the best – and I used them in my book activities)
- Tissues (’cause kids sneeze and drip and goober)
- Hand Sanitizer (I like Bath and Body Works)
- Paper towel (I like Bounty select-a-size because you never really know the size of a kid clean-up)
As an aside: I also always pack an emergency snack in the kids’ backpacks. This is in addition to their lunch boxes. Why? Because they get hungry on the way home. Or drop their snack mid-munch and have to put that one in the garbage (so good to have a back-up snack). Or – even though no-sharing is pretty much a standard policy…when a friend forgets their lunch…my kids’ are the first to step up to share (no one should go hungry right?!). I always ensure the emergency snack is nut free and in original packaging (though our lunches are almost always litterless – the emergency snack is an packaged granola or cereal bar – to ensure it stays fresh however long it might be in the backpack.
And if you are thinking about Back To School Lunch Ideas – well I’ve got you covered on that…
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- School Lunch
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- Homemade School Lunch
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- Even MORE School Lunch Ideas
And my tip for the most essential class supplies of all?!…your time! I chat one-on-one with my kids everyday afterschool – each getting a turn to tell me the good and the bad of the day. This helps me figure out what’s going on in class, helps troubleshoot, motivates…and allows me to write things in the agendas (and those agendas are really meaningful to teachers to get feedback from home!).
For my grade 3 daughter – makers, pencil crayons, scissors, glue sticks, hand sanitizer, a French-English dictionary, a change of clothes and Kleenex for the class supply.
For my SK daughter – just a change of clothes and Kleenex for the class supply so far.
My daughters in JK its her first year. So for her I dint need to send anything just label all her clothes
My children mostly went to German schools and there we’d get a big list each year for everything each child needed to bring with them. In some provinces we had to buy the text books too (nasty when you have a lot of children as I had). Some of them even determined what colours the binders or notebooks had to be. It was always an expensive and big shopping trip to buy it all.
great info
I had a teacher a number of years ago that put these on her list. It was a great idea.