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Daria

8 comments on Back to School: Shopping Our Own House First

Back to School: Shopping Our Own House First

I know we will be sent a supplies list soon but I am determined to buy less stuff.

Today, R was at a playdate at his friend’s next door and L and I did a Back-to-School project: we went into every nook and cranny of our house to do a school supply hunt. Nooks and crannies are drawers, chests, her entire room, our master bedroom bed stands, kitchen junk drawer, and R’s room. We hunted for pencils, pens, crayons, markers, paper, folders, rulers, glue, you name it.

Dining room table at the beginning of our project

After we had it ALL, we dumped it all onto our dining room table and started sorting. These are the categories: pencils/pens/crayons/colored pencils/markers/paper/folders/erasers/scissors/glue/stickers/notebooks as well as things to do projects with such as pipe cleaners/felt balls/popsicle sticks/letters.

We (mainly me) then separated all those supplies into bags and pencil cases. Any crayons that were broken had to go. Any markers without caps/dry had to go. Any paper that was marked up was thrown out. We (mainly me) were ruthless. She is 6 so I tried to reason with her that we have PLENTY, and it’s okay to let some things go.

Freed up space – a space for our kitty in the chest 🙂

In the end we had several categories that in my humble opinion can be further decluttered (SEVEN scissors/EIGHT things of glue??) but we will leave it for now. The kids can “shop” from there when we get the supplies list. Like I said, I am determined to buy less stuff.

Top shelf: construction paper, notebooks. Second shelf: markers, pencils, crayons, Stacked bags: scissors, rulers, stickers, and craft stuff. Bottom shelf: a basket and a vase since they do not fit anywhere else.

Ah… I feel good… I need to do this more often.

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Daria

Mother, teacher, partner, friend. I love coffee, books, and travel with and without kids. I dislike exercise. Nothing glamorous here but do have moments of insight.

8 responses to “Back to School: Shopping Our Own House First”

  1. Coco Avatar
    Coco

    That’s a great project to do with the kiddos. We do this for cloth every few months too, to give away, to remember. we just went to ikea last weekend to get organization boxes for the girls, yet to be used.

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  2. Melissa Avatar
    Melissa

    That’s a good idea to gather everything together before you get the lists. Keep the extra glue and the scissors—when the kids lose them you’ll have backups ready to go.

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  3. Lisa’s Yarns Avatar
    Lisa’s Yarns

    Nice! We do not have nearly as many supplies but my boys are not into art or really even coloring. We have some crayons and markers and construction paper but that is kind of it. I plan to take Paul supply shopping this weekend. We have had his supply list since school got out but I put off buying anything until now. He’ll be gone the last 2 weeks of August so this weekend is our last chance to shop for supplies together. He didn’t love it last summer but I am sticking to this tradition as it’s something I loved doing with my mom.

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  4. Michelle G. Avatar
    Michelle G.

    It’s such a great idea to shop your own house! It sounds like fun to me!

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  5. NGS Avatar
    NGS

    We are two adults in our house. I just did a count and we have seven pairs of scissors in our house. We need EVERY ONE and I refuse to acknowledge otherwise. True story: We just bought a three-pack of scissors at Costco because I felt we didn’t have enough.

    ANYWAY. Enough about that. This is such a good idea to take stock of what you have before the lists come out. Fingers crossed you won’t have to buy much!

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  6. Re-entry/Back to School/Self/Q4 – Mom of Children Avatar
    Re-entry/Back to School/Self/Q4 – Mom of Children

    […] don’t have a lot of prep since my kids are still small: 1st grade and preschool. We did the school supplies hunt in our own house on Wednesday. On Thursday, L and I fished out her uniforms from last year […]

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  7. J Avatar
    J

    Such a fabulous idea. I wonder if there is a way to donate some of those extras to other families in their classrooms? I don’t know how that would work, perhaps it wouldn’t. I like the idea though, of giving some extras to the classroom in case some families don’t have enough.

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  8. Re-entry and back-to-school energy – Mom of Children Avatar
    Re-entry and back-to-school energy – Mom of Children

    […] Back-to-school energy is here! Haircuts (for the kids and ME), uniform shopping, and, my favorite: classroom set up. I go back next week, the kids- after Labor Day so we still a while but it feels good to get those things out of the way. As for the school supplies, we don’t purchase anything. Our house already has so much of everything. Shopping our drawers first, I did a similar thing last year. […]

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