Many of our children will be returning to school this September. Their classrooms will likely not look anything like what they are used to and their experiences will be completely different. Within this new experience of returning to school in a pandemic, parents are trying to figure out how to best prepare their children for this “new adventure”. I am one of those parents, trying my best to prepare for a safe return to school for my daughter.

I recently spoke to a friend, who is a teacher, and she loaded me with some excellent tips on how to prepare my daughter for this new year, in addition to items I should add to my back to school shopping list.

Preparing for Back to School

Stay clean and sanitized

A priority this year for all of our kids will be that they keep their hands clean and avoid touching their faces – while this is a request, this may not be a reality. For older kids and teens, this may be easier as they tend to have more awareness over their actions. My daughter, for example, will touch her face without realizing until I remind her that she is doing it.

– I will be packing Wet Ones antibacterial wipes into my daughter’s backpack and lunch bag. The plan is for her to be able to wipe down her hands and even her desk space should she need it.
– I have recommend to my daughter that she wash her hands as often as she feels necessary. I recognize not every classroom has a sink so this may be tricky, so this is why I have prepared backups.
– I purchased travel hand sanitizer containers for kids on Amazon, which I will be filling myself with hand sanitizer, which I have puchased from Well.ca and Walmart. I added a name label to the opposite side, and will be attaching them to get backpack and lunch bag.
NOTE: Amazon also carries clear ones for older kids, assuming they are no longer in the unicorns and mermaids phase.

No sharing is encouraged

My best guess is that kids will have to have their own supplies to avoid sharing. While we normally teach our kids to share, and we purposely place communal sets of supplies for kids to learn this important skill, this will most likely not be the case this year.

Not sharing also means a higher cost for schools in regards to providing school supplies for each student in the class, and we know how the government LOVES to fund schools in these cases *insert eye roll here*. As a result, since I fortunately have the privilege of getting my child their own supplies, this is what I have done. In my opinion, this frees up some funds for the school to provide supplies for the children that do need them.

Some of the items I’ve bought so far are:

– Crayola school supplies, such as pencil crayons, crayons and markers.
– Large pencil case for the items mentioned above, and a smaller one for her pencils, sharpener, eraser, scissors, small ruler and glue. If you have older kids, you may also want to include a small stapler, pens (blue/black and red), highlighters and whiteout.
– I bought some primary school friendly Hilroy notebooks, however there is a huge selections online at Staples depending on whether your child needs notebooks or binders with lined paper. I normally would not buy notebooks, but in this situation I figured it would be helpful.
– Packs of tissue are also useful so your child can keep on at their desk and another in their backpack as back-up.

Label All The Things!

One of the priority ‘to-do” items for parents who have younger children is to get name labels for their child’s items and stick them on all the thing. In many schools this is a requirements for children in the primary grades, and we started doing this as early as daycare. Since then, I have been purchasing labels from Mabel’s Labels as they are so durable and will stick on basically anything and everything. So yes, I label all the things.

This year it is particularly important to label your child’s items to ensure they are not confused or mixed with another child’s items. I normally label her clothing, shoes and lunch items, but this year I have gone above and beyond and labelled her individual pencil crayons.

While this may sound super extensive to some, this is my way of acknowledging that my child will no longer be in an environment that there are communal bins of school supplies, but rather she will have her own supplies to use.

Preparing for lunch time

Lunch time will be a very busy and tricky time for teachers; especially for those with younger students and those with special needs. Below are some items I will be adding to Z’s lunch time routine:

– Crayola scissors as they are safe to use and they will help her open up any items that she may have needed help with from her teachers in the past.
– Tea towels will be packed in her lunch so that she can use it as a placemat and keep her space as clean as possible. In case there are any messes or spills, the tea towel will be there to catch it all and avoid a bigger mess. She can bring it home and it will go right in the wash – I got one for every day of the week. I got them from my local Dollar Tree so they were quite inexpensive.
– Like I mentioned above, I will be packing antibacterial wet wipes and her hand sanitizer as well.

Give DIY projects a try!

As I prepare my daughter and her list of items to return to school, I have been spending a lot of time with my Cricut Maker. I have labeled her pencil cases and even made her cases for her masks. I wanted to make sure she had a safe place to put them when she was having lunch.

I will be sharing a video on how I made the mask cases soon, so stay tuned to my Instagram!

You can also try making your own masks, masks lanyards, sticker labels and so much more. If you scan on Instagram, YouTube or Pinterest there are so many ideas for ways you can out your creativity to work.

Preparing for a “new” environment

Depending on where you live, and even the grade your child is in, may mean that masks are mandatory. I imagine that wearing a mask for a long period of time may be uncomfortable, so I looked to Etsy for mask clips, mainly to prevent from the back of her ears from getting irritated or feeling uncomfortable. I find that the more comfortable it is, the more likely my child will keep her mask on and prevent her from constantly adjusting it.

I have purchased my child’s cloth masks from Gap and a local seamstress (#supportlocal). There are many retailers offering child, teen and adult sized masks with a huge variety, from cut to prints.

Most importantly, be truthful and honest with our kids about how different their school environment may look and feel. If they are prepared for what is to come, and are educated on the importance of keeping themselves and their peers safe, then their transition will be a much smoother one. We have to keep in mind just how resilient and smart our children are, and how able they are to adapt to new environments.

Hopefully my back to school preparations help you with your very own shopping list and help you and your family be as ready as you back for this very unique back to school season. Keep in mind that we are in unprecedented times, which means that not a single one of us is doing the perfect thing; but rather we are trying our best for our children and that’s what matter most.

Do you have any other ideas, tips or tricks that you are applying to your back to school preparations? Drop them in the comments below or send them my way via Facebook and/or Twitter.

Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate links. Even though these links are included, I am not making profit from mentioning the brands and retailers in this post. The opinions and reviews of products/services in this post are honest and my own.