Ah….back to school! It really IS the MOST WONDERFUL time of the year! A time when we are back to schedules, order and routine. I’m hopelessly in love with new school supplies! I love the smell of new No. 2 pencils and the clean binders with fresh paper full of promise. Give me sticky notes, brightly colored pens and sharp crayons. I love it all!
It’s also the time of year for supply lists, long lines and aggravated parents. Not in this house! I save my sanity by purchasing most of my kids’ school supplies online. This way, instead of waiting 2 hours to buy paper, pencils and notebooks, I can sit home doing anything else at all until the boxes arrive at my front doorstep.
Of course shopping online means using my PayPal account. Did you know you can actually save money using PayPal? PayPal has exclusive offers with select retailers that can make your Back to School shopping even more affordable. Visit paypal.com/backtoschool to see the best ways to save money! Pretty cool, right?
Now that my oldest is going into middle school, he wants a more “grown up” backpack. No rolling backpacks, no colors that stand out, no monograms or characters. Just a simple and understated backpack with all of his essentials.
What’s In Your Backpack?
Pencil Pouch
Little Ricky is well equipped with pencils, pens, markers, and colored pencils. Also in his pencil pouch, he has his scissors, compass, protractor and calculator. Essentially every tool he will need for each of his seven classes.
Binders & Dividers
The middle school teachers have requested that the students bring in binders and dividers to keep their work organized. This is an area where Little Ricky struggles…organization. (He’s definitely his father’s son…) I make sure that he starts his year neat and organized, then each week I have him go through everything and put it behind the appropriate divider. I know this is going to be a must for middle school. Fingers crossed!
Paper
Surprise, surprise! I like to buy more paper than the teachers request especially during the sale time of back to school. I keep it on hand to use throughout the year. This year, not only did teachers request notebook paper, but Little Ricky also needs graph paper for math.
Flash Drive
We live in the age of technology, so of course students need flash drives. This is helpful for when they work on a paper or project at school and need to bring it home to complete or vice versa. Lucky for Little Ricky, I have a ton of those on hand thanks to my job!
Healthy Snack
In the middle of the day, before lunch or at pick up time, a healthy snack is a must in my guy’s backpack. He usually picks an apple, a clementine, a granola bar or some pretzels. Something just to satisfy his hunger for a little while. After all, during summer he has a direct line to the kitchen at all times.
There’s something about this time of year that reminds me of the years that I spent as a teacher in impoverished areas. I remember some of my students not being able to afford new school supplies or backpacks. I always make it a point to help out kids during back to school season.
This season, PayPal is partnering with select charities dedicated to providing access to education and extracurricular enrichment to children. Donations made through the PayPal Giving Fund will receive a 1% match from PayPal from August 12 – August 31, 2016. Now I can donate at the same place I shop.
All charities that I would want to donate to at this time of year anyway. To learn more about the PayPal Giving Fund and how to donate, go to paypal.com/givenow.
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
The post What’s in Your Backpack? appeared first on The Exhausted Mom.