s/o Kindergarten- school supplies and backpacks

[smilequeen]

We don't have supplies to buy. The school provides everything (although private so we still pay for them with tuition )

He picked a PBK backpack and we have a planet box.

[AngB]

OP here - thanks all. I was just curious what others were required to bring and if you all even received your lists yet. I haven't, and I'm wondering if maybe I missed an email. I will check with the school. I definitely won't buy anything until I get the list.

Ours were on the district website, the elementary grade supply lists are district wide and very non specific so I am wondering if it will change when we have kinder orientation.

[Kindra178]

So our school kindergarten list wants 4 boxes of crayons (sorry teachers, when I have to buy 4 boxes they are NOT going to be crayola unless it's the cheapest..it wasn't.) 4 packs of markers (2 boxes of skinny markers and 2 boxes of the regular size) , 2 boxes of dry erase markers, and 12 glue sticks, among other things (those were just the items that had me raising an eyebrow.) When I taught we were happy to have kids bring a binder and paper and pen. Now I see why people complain about school supply lists, at least in our district it is excessive.

Perfectly normal items around here. Teachers ask for specific brands due to quality. Cheap crayons break easily in little kid hands (restaurant crayons anyone?). Why purposefully frustrate a child and teacher if you can afford literally a few extra dollars? I don't get the anger associated with buying school supplies. They are for your kids and their peers.


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[ArizonaGirl]

I'm all for buying stuff...

I'm all for getting good quality supplies...

What frustrates me here is that we don't meet the teacher until 4 days before school starts which is when we find out who the teacher is. There is a generic supply list online but my experience is that teachers vary widely from that list and if you go by that you will have purchased things they don't want/need and you won't have purchased things they specifically ask for.

Then I get to spend the weekend before school starts running around (with all 7 million other parents whose kids start the same day mine do) trying to obtain all of the requested items.

I just wish we found out the exact requested supplies a little early so I could do more bargain hunting and not have to rush around.

[eagle]

just thinking out loud, but can you bring in a lot of the stuff in one, two weeks after school starts? you dont _have_ to rush. i think!

[eagle]

esp with respect to things like ziplock bags, wipes, tissues, glue sticks, spiral notebooks, etc etc. in kindergarten it seems like a lot of it is communal. i could be wrong tho

[carolinacool]

Funny story about school supplies. As I mentioned previously, our teachers tend not to specify brands. Around April, DS came home complaining that he did not want Crayola crayons anymore, he wanted Cra-Z-Art. I was like, dude, no one wants Cra-Z-Art. He put up such a fuss, I ended up going to Walmart to buy a pack for school. I think he got to keep his own crayons in his pencil box. I never heard anymore about it. Lol

[azzeps]

We got DS a Fairfax backpack size large from PBK and the matching lunchbox. He has a couple of Yumboxes and lots of those Funtainer bottles to use. The backpack is only slightly too big for him. I got the large so it would last a few years.

[AngB]

Perfectly normal items around here. Teachers ask for specific brands due to quality. Cheap crayons break easily in little kid hands (restaurant crayons anyone?). Why purposefully frustrate a child and teacher if you can afford literally a few extra dollars? I don't get the anger associated with buying school supplies. They are for your kids and their peers.

It hasn't been that long since I quit teaching and I am still friends with quite a few teachers including some elementary who confirmed that buying 4 boxes of crayons for one student for one school year is way overboard [then 4 boxes of markers as well] and they would just ignore it and send in 2 boxes [this actually from my friend who is an elementary teacher herself in a neighboring district.] The list didn't specify brands (or even count sizes), but I did buy 4 as the list said, in most cases Elmers and Crayola actually did end up being the cheapest so I did go with it. [And with the crayons I got 2 boxes of Crayola and 2 boxes of Up&Up.] I guess if their 4 boxes of crayons break too easily luckily they still have 4 boxes of markers to fall back on! It's not the crayons or the markers I have a problem with. Every year I have donated supplies (Crayola) to our preschool teacher when we didn't even have a supply list. I don't have an issue with spending money for my kids and peers on school supplies, I have an issue with the teachers/district asking for an excessive amount of stuff that they are very unlikely to use in a school year.

[PZMommy]

In kindergarten we easily went through 4 boxes of crayons. For starters they lose them. They fall on the floor, someone else picks it up and now they are short one. They break, they get stepped on, they get sticky and nasty and chewed up, they get all dull, and they can only rip the paper off so much before they just are a mess. I have to purchase all supplies for my students with my own money. When buying supplies for my kindergarten students, I budgeted 4 to 5 boxes of crayons per student, 12 glue sticks per student, 2 boxes of markers, and 1 box of colored pencils. Plus, they needed folders, notebooks etc. I was buying for 24 students, so you can imagine how much I had to spend every year. As they get older and more responsible with their supplies, things last longer. When I taught first grade I only needed two boxes of crayons per student, and 6 glue sticks. This year's even worse for me as I'm moving from kindergarten to fifth grade so I now need to furnish a whole new classroom library, decor, a class set of our core lit books, etc. I've easily spent $1000 so far of my own money and school hasn't even started yet! I wish we could ask parents to send in supplies with their students but we aren't allowed to do that. We are given pencils and paper, and sometimes I'd like to just use that so parents realize just how much the teachers provide for their kids.

My own kids are attending a charter school and they have supply lists. Even though I've spent a fortune on supplies for my own students, I buy every item requested and then send in extras as well. I know that whatever the student doesn't bring will be coming out of the teacher's own pocket.