Workin’ It Wednesday- {8.9.17}

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Happy Wednesday! Today I’m linking up with Shay and Erika for Workin’ It Wednesday- Back to School style. I’m going to share the stuff that works for our family to get us back in the school groove. (I’m kind of shuddering even typing that. Where did summer go?)

FAMILY CALENDAR

It always seems like once the first day of school hits, our calendar BLOWS up. We have soccer practice x 2, swim lessons, homework and school stuff, PTA meetings, etc, etc. as I know we all do. What keeps it all straight for us is our giant dry erase calendar that we have hanging in our kitchen. I have these colored dry erase markers and use a different color for each of us. I write everything (including our dinner menu!) on it and look at it throughout the day. Even our older kiddos know to find their color on the calendar and ask what is going on that day.

I design and sell these calendars in my brand new Etsy shop and am running a shop opening sale this week. You will get 20% off your order with coupon code OPENING20 until Sunday, August 13th. Check out my shop and if you don’t see a calendar in a style or color you like, contact me here or on Etsy and I would love to design something for you.

PLUS- Walgreens is having a 40% off their in-store poster printing this week. SO (I’ll do the math) with both coupon codes, you will have a custom family calendar ready to go for back to school for under $20. Grab any glass frame of your choice (this is my pick) and dry erase markers and keep everyone on the same page! It was truly life changing for us.

SCHOOL CLOTHES

Our kiddos wear uniforms to school and we have not found better prices or quality than Old Navy. Last year we ordered several different brands and at the end of the year, only Old Navy shirts/pants held up for us. Their prices right now are awesome and stocking up on the next size in school uniforms is on my list for this week. (This is not sponsored in any way.)

LUNCHES

My first grader prefers to bring lunch from home everyday which is fine by me. Last year I made this list of food choices and I usually choose a couple from each category per week to alternate. No matter what is on the list, school lunch choices get old quickly so if anyone has any suggestions to add please comment! I’ll list what we pack below in case it sparks ideas for anyone else. (We are a peanut free school.)

‘Main Dishes’ – bagels with cream cheese, turkey or ham and cheese wraps, meatballs, pigs in a blanket, crackers/sausage/cheese

Fruits/veggies – Cucumber, carrots, cherry tomatoes, cauliflower, apples, grapes, strawberries, blueberries, applesauce, watermelon, oranges

Sides – string cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, pretzels, hard boiled egg, goldfish, raisins, nutrigrain bars, muffins, green pea sticks

We use Yumbox and these ice packs and have never had issues keeping his lunch cold.

SCHOOL PAPERS

Last year when my oldest was in kindergarten, I was grossly underprepared for the mass amount of paper and projects that came home in his folder everyday. We created this Art Wall for our kiddos projects and it’s really worked for us.

Each of our older boys have 7 clips to hang something on and choose what they want to hang every day. When the clips are full, they choose what to take down to put something new up. Sometimes they really love something and leave it up for a long time and other times things only stay up for a couple days. When we take something down, we take a picture of the things we really liked, keep the really, really important things for their memory boxes and recycle the rest. It keeps stuff from overtaking our refrigerator and saves us from drowning in paper clutter. See my post here for what we used to make it.

Okay. That’s what works for us for back to school. I still have supplies to buy which is so unlike me. When we went to buy supplies last week (at a super random time of day), the aisles were still packed with carts and crabby parents. And I felt like I was going to get hives. Why do school supply lists make everyone so crabby? God speed to all you fellow parents and your school supply lists.

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