July 30, 2018

Back to School Prep Tips

Are you in Back to School mode? We don’t go back until the end of August BUT there are a few things I do to get us prepped and ready for the new school year. I have three kids – 1 in lower elementary, 1 in upper elementary, and one in middle school. In case you’re new here, I am a former art teacher and LOVE school supplies so the fact that we shop early to get first crack at everything shouldn’t surprise you 🙂  I have a handful of my best tips for back to school in this post – keep reading!

I shared this tip on my Instagram stories last week (you are following me, right?) and you guys went a little bonkers over it so I thought I’d share it with you here too. This is something I’ve been doing ever since I had two kids in school because it just gets crazy in the back to school aisles. We start out at the end of July with going out to breakfast early and then hit up our local Target (you can go to any store you choose, this is just our tradition). We try to get there around 8 or 9 am so we’re the only ones in the aisles – another time saver and everything is fully stocked because we’re probably the first ones there. It’s annoying to be short one orange folder but have every other item, right?

Here’s the premise – each kid has different supply lists and if it all just gets tossed in the cart haphazardly it takes quite a bit of time at home to sort back through everything. This saves time! With all the labeling and unboxing and then re-packing everything up, school supply shopping can be pretty time consuming.

I grab three baskets – one for each kid – and we start shopping. We put the items in the correct basket and fill up the baskets. I usually use a clipboard with the lists and a pen is a must to cross off each item as we go. Once we fill it up and double check our items we head to the checkout lane and I ask for the items to be bagged up together from the basket. This is the magic of this method – each kid’s stuff stays together so we have it ready to go for school.

I also purchase a handful of items that I know we’ll run out of of need mid-year like pencils, markers, and pens – this way I get them on sale and we aren’t making any last minute trips to the store. I also like to stock our school supply caddy too – this is used year-round for art projects, homework, and free drawing time. See the full how-to here.

I find that it’s super helpful to be ready for the papers and inundation of school stuff so I make sure we’ve gone through everything from the previous year, sorted and filed or recycled it. I have 3 components for the stuff. This post details what I do.

Need to clean your backpacks? It’s super easy and you just might get another year out of that smelly backpack. Check out this post!

If your kids are anything like mine, activities are winding down, the weather is heating up even more and there’s some boredom going on. I use this time to go through toys (with them) and help get their rooms and closets organized before school starts. This post shares some of my tips and essentials for organizing toys and kid stuff.

Before the cleaning comes decluttering and YES you can declutter with kids – here’s how.

Need to brush up on some room cleaning skills? This post should do the trick – how to teach your kids to clean their rooms (so you don’t have to).

When do your kids go back to school? Have a tip to share? Share it in the comments!