Back to School Checklist

 

 

When shopping for back-to-school clothes, check with the school's dress code, and make sure that the student has plenty of clothes that are acceptable to wear to school, and are seasonally appropriate. If your student attends a school that requires a specific uniform, make sure to get multiple sets of that uniform so your student has more than enough clothes for the week and you're not stuck with the job of washing and drying the uniform every day. As a parent, you don't want that embarrassing phone call home about how your child is wearing clothes that are frowned upon, and as a student, you don't want to get pulled out of the classroom or even stopped before you get in the doors because of your failure to wear clothes that are appropriate for the classroom.

 

 

Your back-to-school checklist should include things like notebooks, Post-its, binders, looseleaf paper, and textbooks. There should be notebooks for every subject, to make it easier for the student to organize notes and assignments. Post-its are useful for taking smaller notes and jotting down reminders. Binders and looseleaf sometimes work better than notebooks because you can easily reorganize your notes by moving around papers. Check with the school and courses being taken to see if textbook materials are required of the student, or if the school will be providing all the necessary texts.

 

 

Your student will also need some things to write with, so make sure you get him or her plenty of writing tools like pens, pencils, and even colored pencils and crayons. The colored pencils and crayons are only useful if your student is in pre-school, elementary school, and maybe even middle school, or if they're taking special art classes in their later years of education. Make sure to get pens that are easy to use, won't break or spill, and come with standard black or blue ink. For pencils, No. 2 lead pencils are all they'll need, but it's better if they get mechanical pencils, so they're not sitting in classes all day sharpening their wooden pencils.

 

 

Make sure your student has a nice sturdy backpack for carrying all of his or her things, like extra clothes, stationary, textbooks, and writing tools. It should also be able to take the beating your student will give it and should last throughout the academic year, so there isn't any need to buy more than one backpack. Some organizational accessories that can be useful for a student include a writing tools holder so writing tools are separated from all other things and are easier to find, rather than having your kid fuss around at the bottom of their backpack trying to locate that one pen or that one pencil.