Here’s everything you need to start the school year (and not be placing panicked Amazon orders at midnight)!
Backpack and lunch box
Unless you have a half day Kindergarten, you most likely need to pack a snack AND lunch. That means a fun lunchbox (yay!). You don’t have to coordinate them, but I love a good matchy matchy moment. One of my favorite brands just launched matching backpacks and lunch boxes (starting at $44.90 and $24.90).
Water bottle, snack container, and more
You might also want a nice snack holder so that nothing spills in the backpack. A kid-friendly utensil set is helpful to send in with lunch, or fun fruit picks. AND don’t forget a leak-free water bottle!
I also have a set of travel utensils (fork, knife, and spoon) that the kids can use during the school year. I wish they fit inside the kids’ Bentgo boxes, but I use a lunchbox for that anyway so I just put everything together in the lunchbox.
School supplies!
While your school supplies list will vary from town to town (and city to city), you can bet your bottom dollar that Kindergarten requires a few things:
- a good box of crayons
- washable markers
- scissors that are kid-friendly
- glue sticks
What you need at home to help you stay organized
To keep you organized as the parent of a new Kindergartener, you can plan to have a few things to make your day to day easier:
- a notepad or note cards in case you need to send a note to the teacher/staff
- name labels for all of your child’s items (I keep these by the door and just stick them on as we go. If we get a new pair of shoes, a new jacket, etc., the labels are there and I can put them on as we are walking out the door. Kids grow fast so this happens more than you would think it would!)
- extra hair elastics (they’re always getting lost) so I’m not running around in the morning looking for one!
- shoe sizer! One of the best purchases I made this year was this shoe sizer. Now instead of guessing shoe sizes and ordering multiples (which also means having a lot more returns to send back), you can measure your children’s feet and order the right size the first time. Since kids’ feet grow so fast, this has been a game changer for us.
And last, but not least… to help manage those first-day jitters:
A book about starting Kindergarten
For many kids, Kindergarten means a new building, new teachers, new friends… new everything! It can be a scary time, so the more books you can read about it, the better. Books we like include We Don’t Eat Our Classmates and Birdie’s First Day of School. More books that were recommended to me:
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