Looking Back...Planning Ahead

Since the first schools opened their doors the tradition of back to school shopping has been part of the fabric of our lives. I wonder if Mary took Jesus shopping for items needed for his religious training. As the hot humid summer days of August would draw to a close we did our back to school shopping when I was growing up. I can’t remember ever starting school before the last week of August when I was in grade school. Today they are starting school by the second week in some places. There were four children in our family and we lived on a tight budget. As a general rule we didn’t do much shopping but there was back to school shopping we were allowed to be part of.

The notebooks, pencils, crayons, erasers and rulers were required items. I longed to have the 48 count box of Crayola crayons, or the ultimate choice, the 64 count box. Beautiful colors lined up in a kaleidoscope of possibilities with the built in sharpener right on the back of the box. I was glad when I graduated from the box of 8 and was able to get the box of 16 color options but was very envious of the kids with all the color possibilities at their fingertips.

In the fourth grade I no longer had to use the tub of paste with the combination brush in the lid and was given Elmer’s glue in the squeeze bottle. A friend of mine showed me that if you left puddles of glue to dry in the groove of your wooden ruler before you left for home then when you returned the next morning you had fake fingernails.

Back in the day - before back packs I carried a book satchel for the entire school year in second grade. It was red with a red and white checkered fold down flap that had two metal clasps to latch it to the front of the satchel and a white plastic handle. Very un-cool back then and definitely by today's standards. In our family, if money was spent on something than you used it- cool or not. I was so glad to get rid of that ugly thing and move on to the third grade without it.

Several of the kids at school had the pencil box that had the multiplication tables. At one end was a pencil sharpener, the lid of the box was also a ruler and had the multiplication tables on it. Mom never bought that for me either…she said I would memorize them and wouldn’t need that fancy pencil box. I am ashamed to admit that I never did memorize them.

To this day I have to count 5, 10, 15, 20, 25…to figure out 5x5=25. Math and I never seemed to hit it off. Needless to say my husband takes care of the finances in our household. When I have done them I am paranoid about making a mistake and not realizing it until the notice comes from the bank that we have insufficient funds. That hasn’t happened since our first year of marriage but the math phobia has stuck with me.


In the sixth grade we had colorful options when it came to notebook paper. I was able to buy pink and purple colored paper for my binder. It was wonderful until the teacher decided it was too hard on her eyes to read sixth grade writing on anything but white paper. There was some white notebook paper that had flowers along the margin where the holes were punched; I spent my allowance money to have some of that paper.  I think there must be an artist gene somewhere in the family line, my daughter has the same obsession with pretty paper and she is an artist.  We both go nuts at Michael's craft store when we shop the scrapbooking aisle with the beautiful printed paper.


I loved taking our kids shopping for school supplies every year. I felt like a kid again looking at the boxes of crayons, markers and paper. At Target they had huge bins full of school supplies. It was like School Supply Heaven.


One of my husbands all time favorite commercials is the back to school commercial from Staples. He would sing it to our kids.



School supplies are out at every store so now is a good time to stock up on items that you can use come November for Operation Christmas Child. Churches and schools collect shoe boxes filled with little gifts for children. We did this while we lived in New Mexico; it was a fun way for me to buy kids things when I had no small kids living at home. Something to think about while supplies are plentiful and inexpensive. Besides it gives you an excuse to feel like a kid again and shop for those back to school supplies.


Thanks to my mother-in-law for the idea for this post.