I am weepy because I got an email from Target saying items I ordered YESTERDAY will arrive THIS MORNING already, and one of the items was something someone should have put on the list before my last grocery store trip but didn’t, and I went to the store recently and am not going back for awhile, so I was feeling some despair about how can I keep the house stocked during a pandemic IF PEOPLE CAN’T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO PUT THINGS ON THE LIST, and now I am feeling so GRATEFUL to online stores, and to warehouse workers, and to delivery workers, and *WEEP*. So clearly the emotional fragility continues.
Shopping is one of my coping methods, and another recent example of this is that I impulsively ordered a whole lot of notebooks and folders, even though I don’t know if the kids will even need them or use them. Mostly it seems like school supplies are for carrying information back and forth between home and classroom, but also they’re for keeping things organized, and if I were doing classes online I would still want to have a separate notebook for each class, and ideally a folder to match that notebook, and so forth, and buying school supplies is so fun and I’m sad at the thought of missing it, and also I was worried about things selling out and this is not really the year for going from store to store, and so I placed the order.
The three younger kids were all in bed (these days they go to bed about when I do, but I was up late because I couldn’t sleep) so I couldn’t ask them what colors they wanted as I usually would, so I just got two each of every color and we’ll let them cage-match it out: there’s a certain fun in choosing your own stuff, but there’s another kind of fun in figuring out how to divide pre-chosen stuff. Normally I would buy Mead notebooks and folders in hopes of higher durability, but this year I got the store brand of both. These supplies don’t have to survive being shoved into a backpack/locker every day, and I don’t even know if we’ll USE them, so I went cheap: paper-cover notebooks, vinyl cover notebooks; and folders (on clearance!) with and without binder holes (we still have some serviceable binders from last year).
We don’t really need anything else, I don’t think. Normally I want/need to buy more pencils and pens, but we have tons. Normally I would buy new erasers and new pencil cases and new highlighters and basically new anything that seemed fun or was on the teachers’ lists, but this year I don’t have that impulse.
I just wrote about school shopping, too — it’s like it’s programmed into my internal schedule to start buying Things For School, even if we may not need them. (Right now, we are slated for in-person school… but… anything could change.)
I think where I landed is that we need SOMETHING to get us a little excited about school this year. Whether that’s a new first day of school outfit or some cute erasers or a funky pencil case — just SOMETHING to help us enjoy SOME PART of the school year, if even for a moment. Not that a leopard print pencil case will make either in-person or remote learning better/easier. But. It might help a LITTLE.
Yes! Grab the normalcy!
A mother on the parents’ page of my oldest kid’s college said her daughter is starting college remotely, so she bought a load of college-branded stuff and is going to make over her room as a surprise while her daughter is out for a couple of hours.
I thought that was genius.
Back to school shopping was my FAVORITE TIME OF YEAR as a kid. This was the first year I was going to be able to do it as a parent, with my oldest entering kindergarten. Now she’s going to be completely online at least for the first quarter, and it feels like all the wind has been taken out of my sails. I was so looking forward to taking her shopping for school supplies, and we’re now at a point where she hasn’t been inside a store in 5 months and I don’t know if it’s worth the risk of taking her. It feels crushing and despiriting.
I guess I’ll see how I feel when we get the supply list.
Today was payday… I just brought children’s Christmas present to scratch the itch….
I hear ya x
Yes to all of this. A few years ago, we bulk-bought school supplies for our one kid during a tax-free weekend, on huge sale. We did it with the hope that we could donate some to his teachers, and we could have some on hand for future years, since most of what he needed he’s needed every. single. year. It worked out, because the only things we needed to update were supplies for his art classes. and we still have some supplies on our shelves to send with him to college.
So, if you over-bought for this year, fear not. They’ll keep.
When Oldest started 6th grade he had an absolutely enormous (and turns out ridiculous) school supply list. Because it was our first time as middle school parents we bought everything on the list
. . . and used most of it for the next 3 years. It was that ridiculously over the top. My point is that I second this message: if you buy too much it will keep.
I have actually decided to splurge on more expensive school supplies for my daughter this year as she appreciates such things and it would be something to perk her up in these weird times. She’ll be doing 2 in-person days a week in reduced class sizes, and it’s not yet known if kids in her high school will even be using their lockers since you can’t distance when everyone needs in them all at once, so she might have to carry everything with her all day.
She’s thinking sturdier, smaller notebooks to carry with her to supplement the chromebook she’ll likely take to school since she’ll be using it at home the other weekdays and it seems like it’ll be easier to be consistent to use the same tools whether she’s in the classroom or at home. However, we also got cute extra masks to wear at school plus a fabric pen so she can put her initials inside them, and I’m expecting that school supplies required will include hand sanitizer and wipes, that last of which I’m fretting about as they are very hard to find still.
I’m about 75% sure we’ll be keeping my son home to do remote learning (our board hasn’t sent out any information yet on what that would look like, but his grade is full classes, 5 days), so he just needs his laptop and scratch paper, pens, pencils, erasers, etc. plus he could care less about school supplies. All I have to keep in mind for him specifically is that he’s a lefty, so I have to have a few pens on hand for him that won’t smear ink.
My daughter’s art class required materials list was more intense than expected. $150 later, and I still will need to venture to Staples or somewhere for the rest of it. I remember paying a Materials Fee last year for in class instruction, but it wasn’t $150.
Whoa, what grade is she in?
8th. This year, instead of shared classroom supplies, everyone needs their own sets of markers (fine and ultrafine) pastels, watercolor paints, acrylic paints, various sketch books, brushes and an optional (but suggested) easel. And various other items like scissors, sketch pencils, colored pencils, etc.
Wow! My husband teaches college art classes and I don’t think they spend more than $100 on materials. You might want to look into table top easels. They’re a cheaper alternative and take up a lot less space. I have a full sized and a table top easel and the full sized one ended up in the basement.
We went all out and stocked up our “home schooling areas” this year. It’s funny – one daughter is a total type A, schedule/project manager type (like me!) and the other is a super procrastinator, go with the flow type. So one has a fully set up desk/work space with EVERYTHING she needs, and the other is like -meh, I”ll take a few notepads, a binder and some pens/pencils only.
I want to buy new school supplies, but our schools haven’t given us a list of what eLearning supplies we’ll “need,” since most teachers won’t be back on campus until next week. Super frustrating, because this weekend is our “tax-free” weekend to do all our school shopping.
Look at last year’s supply lists for those teachers, if they’re online. If not, just buy as many of the usual items as you can. If your kid is taking geometry, get a protractor and a compass. If they’re taking art, get one of those special grey erasers, and an all-purpose art pad.
There is something special about new school supplies. My favorite line by far…I will let them cage-match it out. Too funny.
My son is younger than yours, so we still stocked up on markers and crayons and such knowing he’ll use those for home even if they don’t get used for school. For actual school supplies I’m focusing on things to make the school area in the house more pleasant – new headphones (his were duct-taped together), a paper/pencil/stuff holder for the table next to his desk, printer paper for things he does better by hand (part of his 504 plan), and more scissors because they are on sale and seriously where do all the scissors go? When he grows up and moves out I fully expect to find 300 pairs of scissors left behind on the floor of his room, from the little kid safety scissors to the grown-up size. WHERE DO THEY GO?
So that’s my advice I suppose. Buy scissors while they are on sale. And tape!
I have bought my kids multiple pairs of scissors over the years, and in self-defense have also socked 3 pairs of kitchen scissors and one pair of craft scissors away in drawers in my kitchen. And yet I STILL find myself bellowing “Where are all my scissors?” at my kids far too often.
But seriously, where do the scissors go?! I have bought SO MANY pairs of scissors over the years and they just . . . disappear into another dimension I guess?
Where they are used to snip single socks into tiny pieces which are placed in lidless tupperware containers…
Hahahaha
And my children get MAD when I will not give them my scissors. I’m like, I put them away so I can find them. You’ll just put mine wherever you put yours and there will be no scissors! Go find your own.
YES! This is obviously the situation!
It’s weird seeing all the back to school promotions in stores, just like everything is normal and fine. I know they plan these things way in advance, but still. I wish they would NOT plan to have HALLOWEEN stuff out already (I’m looking at you, Dollar Tree and Target website).
Yes, definitely saw Halloween candy out last week! Like isn’t Halloween going to be cancelled?!
I am pre-panicking that my neighborhood will go rogue and have trick or treating. I don’t want many many people at my door nor do I want to disappoint my child and again be the parent who says no, no, no, this is not a good idea. I will do that, but come on other parents! I’ve already restricted her from birthday parties, swim parties, etc, etc. It’s like re-living all the worst socializing parts of toddler playgroups. Are rule followers always on the outside looking in?
I never even thought about trick-or-treating!
My daughter declared last year that she was getting too old, but I think she meant that this year she’d be going to a party at a friend’s house instead. Guess that ain’t gonna happen!
My son will definitely feel like he’s missing out and next year might be too old. But I think buying a bunch of his favourite candy will go a long way towards making up for it!
My husband does scheduling for work, and he said that all but two people requested Halloween off this year. I was assuming we’d all just be home, but it looks like everyone else is planning on a regular Halloween.
My neighborhood is like a giant and very crowded party on Halloween (there are lines to get up to the door for candy at a lot of houses, and some houses pass out shots to adults) so the thought of having regular Halloween sounds a little crazy to me.
Our elementary list came out today. Do I buy the things or do I wait until the school board meeting next week where they will probably decide that they can’t offer in-person and will make us do virtual instead?! Later today the virtual list came out and I did compare the two to see if there’s things on both that I could buy for either eventuality. But then it was just all too much mentally and I only managed to add highlighters to my grocery pick-up order for next week.
The middle school wants to start virtual, so I don’t know what we need for that. The high school list goes by teacher, but we don’t have a schedule yet.
I don’t want to take my 9 year old to pick out supplies this week and then next week find out that he can’t actually go in person anyway.
My sons (7 and 9) will be going to school 2 days per week (at least to start; I fully expect this to be cancelled within the first month), so I followed their regular list and bought everything on it. Well, actually, my mom bought everything, she’s a retired teacher and school shopping is her favorite thing in the world. She’s upset she couldn’t take the boys to the store, but she made do with shopping online. I told her about the Target list where you can choose your school and grade and click the button and it adds EVERYTHING on the list to your cart, which is a freaking miracle invention, but she did it all one by one because she’s crazy like that.
Oh my gosh, Kerri (comment above)! I had NO idea about the Target lists!! Our school is there and the overwhelming sadness I feel lately about preparing/not preparing/hybrid/online/what to even do is so helped by this easy link. Thank you!
K, glad I could help! It’s seriously the best invention ever!