Back to school for us too

[wavejumper]

Ugh. The world is always in such a rush.
As we swelter in the hot days of deep summer we dreamt about during the freezing ones of deep winter....(I would get alcohol poisoning if I drank all the refreshments this heat promotes lol) Hallmark has launched their Christmas ornament line...what? Go away! I am (well) over 50, which means I already live a time-warp life without the cool Star Trek spaceship thank you very much.

I am already seeing back to school supply promos. The first day of August has not dawned yet. The little ones have barely had their water wings on for a few weeks and we are supposed to ask them what knapsack do you want? ugh

What supplies do you buy for yourself while stockpiling the pencils etc for the kids? (Or just for yourself) Crayons? Stickers? Microline pens? A new thermal mug? Copy paper?

The best for us of course is for the art students.

-Sharpies
-cheap disposable paint brushes
-Depends on what Blick puts up
-maybe white crayons for a recent technique Lydia showed us (she has a link for just white bulk on her blog)

And where do you look? Blick? Bed Bath? Oriental trading? Michaels? Walmarts? Dollar store? Online?

And are you jumping now or going to wait another couple of weeks?

[fl_beachbum]

In my area of Florida, school begins on August 10th so people are out looking for supplies already. I needed three-ring binders, so purchased those. And I also saw a set of Crayola colored pencils that are 'colors of the world' (skin tones). I'm excited to use them with adding details to my colored images

I made myself leave the department after that. I love pens and notebooks but don't need more. Walk away, child, walk away...

I'm not ready to be thinking about Christmas yet. The more I see it, the more I rebel.

[lylacfey]

I love back to school time. DH & I start right after 4th of July buying all the new lovelies, I am glad the stores start early. We do the big school drives, We donate a lot of school supplies. I have no children and I have all the school lists from K-12. I really depend on the stores stocking early.

I noticed start dates are later for schools in the Northern States. One of the YT girls I watch her son goes back first day of Autumn. The kids around my area start the third week of August. I think it now has changed to after Labor Day.

I noticed this years school supplies are outrageously expensive. My heart is broken for teachers and parents. I have been buying more for the drives than me this year.

I did get a new Happy Planner, New Crayola crayon releases for this year, New Zebra pens. The STEM Slime lists I was buying for I found some new glitter glues for me, Side note- The teachers slime supply list was crazy this year, lol. I had so much fun slime shopping for the kids.

I buy from WalMat, Dollar General, Dollar Tree & some specialty stores that carry unique items teachers need.

[antiquestamper]

I work in an elementary school as a one-on-one aid with Special Ed and Behavior children. I stock up on composition notebooks. With the help of some designer paper, glue, and letter dies I am able to make personalized notebooks to give as holiday gifts. The kids LOVE them, and they are quick, easy and inexpensive.

[smhtwin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by antiquestamper

I work in an elementary school as a one-on-one aid with Special Ed and Behavior children. I stock up on composition notebooks. With the help of some designer paper, glue, and letter dies I am able to make personalized notebooks to give as holiday gifts. The kids LOVE them, and they are quick, easy and inexpensive.

Thank you for what you do!!! Special Ed aides are so hard to come by! Our school district here in San Diego, which is the 2nd largest in the state, NEVER has enough Special Ed staff. The staff my son has had over the years have been AMAZING.

Parents like me appreciate people like you :razz:

Now, back to the questions posed.....

I'm glad school supplies were out in our stores about a month ago because the hospital where I work does a back-to-school backpack drive for a local shelter that helps families with and/or affected by HIV/AIDS. There are kids ranging in age from 4 years to 18 years old that get backpacks. We have the school lists that Lylacfey mentioned in her post so we know what to buy. My department did two backpacks, one for a 17-year old male and one for an 18-year old female. We always pick the older kids because the graphing calculators they need are expensive ($75-$100) and some employees would rather buy the fun, inexpensive things like crayons and construction paper for the little ones.

I got almost everything at Walmart but did get a few other things at Target and a local grocery store. Who knew you could buy a compass/protractor at a grocery store?! :p

I did pick up some new markers for myself when shopping for the backpack stuff.

As for Christmas stuff out early, I'm one of those who say "Yay!!" The earlier I can start buying things to craft/decorate with, the happier I am. Plus, my son is on the spectrum for autism and he loves all the holidays. We listen to Christmas music every day so when he starts to see holiday stuff in the stores, it makes him so happy. There is an empty storefront near our house already converting to a pop-up Spirit Halloween shop. Their banners are up and DS got so excited when he saw them.

[harvestmoon]

I had never been in a Dollar Tree store until recently. It was next door to Michael's so I braved the heat and walked 75 feet over there. Now most everything is $1.25 instead of the $1.00 I heard of. BEST prices on so many school supplies. 3 ring binders everywhere else are $3 or more. Paper, pencils, etc. Some brand names. Not any art/craft supplies that interested me, but some interesting storage things.

[lylacfey]

antiquestamper- I was a TA for special ed. It is really nice to meet another. I was a TA over twenty years ago. I know teaching has changed a lot. I was also a TA for gang members. I taught math and English.

smhtwin- I buy the calculators too. My district needed two different kinds for the high school students this year. That is crazy expensive for a family to afford.

I buy holiday stuff early too. I want to enjoy the holidays and not shop for it, lol. I have pretty much lived in lower income areas for my adult life. I like to decorate my home for the kids because they think it is magical.

[wavejumper]

Why am I not surprised to hear of such giving people here? Thank you all for that. I do believe we live a better life when we all row the boat together

Schools ask children to get things that cost $100??? WTheck??? That is totally crazy to me!! >:( I was stunned when I heard the art college required students to get the WHOLE copic line at $1500 (now probably more)....I am not sure about the HS but I bet the kids do collect them.

I am the generation that fought about hand calculators because it would make children unable to think for themselves. It is true at the register now I see a disturbing number of people who need to have the register tell them how to make change....including of a dollar. Slide rules were ok for trigonometry...not that I did well anyway lol. Geometry was the only math I excelled in...it is visual shapes and practical. Not only would it help you know how much rug to buy for a room...but it was a flag that I have a creative bent.

So why do I struggle with card layouts??? LOLOL

But I digress...

We don't start public school here in NYC till after Labor Day. This year will be Sept 13th. I always forget how much earlier other states do it. But many of our school buildings are older and may not have A/C. When I was a kid last two weeks in June could be brutal. Privates start earlier.

[lylacfey]

My district is requiring a graphing calculator and scientific calculator. No parents yell at me because I don't have kids or teenagers. I thought some districts use iPads. I understand the district probably lock app access on the iPad's. You would think they could add a calculator and save some parent's some money. I haven't been a TA for over two decades. There might be a perfectly legitimate reason no calculator's on iPad's.

The eight grade list came to $141 for WalMart for our district. That was on the cheap side. That was for basic supplies this year. Five dry eraser maker's were $15. I have seen a lot of stressed out parent's back to school shopping. I know parents are needing to buy cheaper supplies. Cheap school supplies are the bane to many teacher's. Kids walk in with Dollar Tree crayon's. The teacher's first day are replacing with Crayola's.

When I was college age it was a full set of Prismacolor Pencils & Marker's. That was crazy expensive back then. Now, it's the Copic's. I read so many stories of parents going over to forums saying "My college kid needs Copics. Can't I just get him a cheap set on Amazon?" Nope! It was before pandemic. One of my friends had to buy her daughter an Apple iPad with the pen & Copic's for her first year in design school.

That is one of the reasons we have self checkout's now because the new generation doesn't know how to make change. It's not a skill they learn anymore. It's too expensive for stores to teach them. Seriously, you can look this up. We talk about this on my frugality forums a lot. All the STEM's and expensive calculator's but our kids can't make change, lol. I do understand from an modern education point. I do think it's still funny. If change is so outdated why do we still have it?

I watch a lot of what is in my purse videos on YouTube. I watched this young college age girl show off her purse one day. She showed off her change purse. She had change in it. She said "It's so pretty and vintage." "I love using it." The older set lost it. I laughed so hard because I thought "Yeah, if I was her age now that would be me!" ROFL!

First day for my district is August 24th.

I went to Dollar Tree yesterday and bought impractical things for the kids drive. DH & I bought cute pencils, notebooks, novelty pens, lots of fun things. I am in that mindset when kids have supplies that fit their personality they learn better. I bought novelty pens and cute notebooks too for me, lol. Those cute little locker rugs at Dollar Tree oh my gosh my new puppy loves them. I bought her five so she has a huge supply stash now.

[wavejumper]

Locker rugs? I had to look that up. I was a little jealous when I saw these locker "shelving systems" long after I was out of school, but then again, I never had an all day locker anyway. On Gym days we just shoved those horrible one piece "rompers" in our knapsacks and used a locker for the time of the class only if we did at all and not just keep our clothes with us in the gym on the bleachers. Urban public school for you. Maybe today they have all day lockers?
Locker rugs. That cracks me up. My mom would have said NO-she would have seen it as completely unnecessary and do I now. Want to cover the locker floor? Use a cheap plastic placement.

We were generally not given any list. Just the rare item like the slide rule for Trig which kids would talk about "next year we have to get that thing". We picked what kind of notebook we wanted etc. We put stickers on them or drew or kids might have a small graffiti tag. Till the companies started making spiral books with graffiti art already on them. That cracked me up.

So my "back to school" list was my once a year new pro-keds that I was always happy to get since I lived in them.

Why are dollar store crayons not good enough that teachers feel the need to change for Crayola? Because the kids feel bad? When I was little I was excited to get a new box of 64 crayola, but that did not happen every year. Mom would just say "use a different green" if my favorite was no more. We didn't have dollar stores where I was as a kid. Mom would have LOVED that. When we got a national liquidators she was in there all the time but I much older by then.

Why still have coins? My knee jerk reaction is taxes. My retail side says we know psychologically "4.97" sells better than 5.00.

Too hard to teach how to make change??? What?? Don't kids learn subtraction anymore?? Decimals? Perfect example system to use. Too hard to teach how to subtract 57 from 100?? Come on now. Seems like the gear is more important than the lessons??

Anyway...I am sad to hear how expensive these shopping lists have gotten. That's rough, esp if you have more than one kid. Yikes. It was bad enough when kids teased each other about what they got before...geez. But art students always had a big list. Nature of the beast. I would expect the same for dance or music too.

[lylacfey]

Dollar Store Crayons- They are the WORST. If there is one thing you do not buy at DT is the crayons. Don't do it, they are the worst.

They are all wax and no pigment. You have to press down hard to get them to lay down any color. They break so easily.

The kids are imploding because the crayons are breaking or they can't color. The teacher's are imploding because several students are having this problem at the same time.

Teacher's want Ticonderoga Pencil and real Crayola Crayons. Both save their sanity and their classroom. I always stock up on both when I do supply list.

My Dad moved around a lot. I went to schools where I had to share a locker, had no locker, or had my own locker. When I had my own locker I was always decorating it.

You go peek at some of the younger YT they are still blinging out their notebooks. They want those plain notebooks to make all cute and fancy. They are amazingly talented. I discovered them while watching journaling videos. I bought plain notebooks too. My Dad was like "Don't you want the one with a cat?" My Mom was like "She wants to decorate it!"

Trust me, I don't know why kids can't count change. Different school structure I guess. I haven't taught in twenty plus years so I am sure there is a legitimate reason. I had this sweet cashier one time give me back $6.50 in change. She gave it to me in coins. She was supposed to give me 65 cents back, lol. I was like honey this is too much. She was so flustered and overwhelmed. I wish they didn't take life skills out of school. Watching kids trying to figure out how to write a check is painful. To be fair a few years back when my Mom had a bad accident I had to write her check's. I forgot how to do it. I messed up several times. Did I get some looks, lol. A lot of kids can't cook. They have to learn from YouTube videos. I have a feeling cooking was taken out of curriculum due to food allergies. I understand that. I had to learn how to scramble eggs. I am allergic to eggs. I told the teacher I had no reason to learn how to scramble an egg since I would never eat them. She was not amused, lol.