Ready or not, it’s almost time for the kids to go back to school! Where did the summer go? Seriously y’all this summer break whizzed by much too fast. Our first day of school is on August 10, so we’ve been hustling to get ready for back-to-school. Today I’m sharing some of the things we’ve been doing to get ready for school along with a reminder to be saving Box Tops for your school.
5 Tips to Get Ready for Back to School
Clean out your child’s closet and shop for clothes early. I recommend having your child try on last year’s school clothes to see what still fits. Grab a couple of Hefty Trash Bags and start a donate pile and one to keep. This year our donate pile was a lot taller than our keep pile. I can’t get over how much this child has grown the last few months. I have to tell you that T was a little embarrassed by the messy state of her closet when I took the below picture. Guess what she’ll be doing tomorrow? You guessed it, she’ll be cleaning her closet. Also, start shopping for school clothes early. I noticed some of my stores are already sold out of certain sizes.
Modify your bedtime routine. It’s a good idea to ease into your normal school year bedtime routine. I’ve been letting T stay up an hour or so later than normal this summer. We’ve already begun to ease back into an earlier bedtime, since school starts on August 10. What I recommend is one to two weeks before the first day of school start putting the kids to bed a little early each night. Doing your school bedtime for a week should be enough to establish a routine.
Prepare for the morning rush. Equally as important as a bedtime routine, is your morning wake-up schedule. We’ve been staying in our pajamas pretty late in the morning this summer, so getting used to the morning rush is important. Let your kids get use to waking earlier in the morning, at the time you have established for the school year. Rushing around in the morning before school can be very upsetting for your child, so be sure you have allowed enough time to wake up and prepare for the day. When we are too much of a rush, it is easy for things like lunch boxes and back packs to get left behind.
Start meal planning. I find meal planning to be essential during the busy school year. It ensures that a good meal finds its way to the table each night, and we don’t have a lot of waste. You know I’m a huge fan of freezer meals and using the slow cooker. Both are perfect for busy weeknights. Be sure to stock up on Reynolds Kitchens Slow Cooker Liners and Bakeware. Once or twice a month on the weekend, I spend a day preparing freezer meals. They are such a lifesaver during the week. The Reynold’s Bakeware is perfect for storing things like casseroles in the freezer. I don’t know what to say about slow cooker meals except that they are AMAZING and I can’t live without them. And, seriously don’t spend precious time scrubbing your slow cooker when Reynold’s Slow Cooker Liners make cleanup so easy.
Buy school supplies online. While I prefer trying on clothing in the store, I love buying things like school supplies online. There are a lot of online deals for school supplies, so save yourself the hassle of dealing with the crowds. Plus, Amazon has thousands of school supply lists available. Simply type in your zip code, to locate your school’s supply list. Easy peasy.
Box Tops for Education
Tati’s school is always looking for ways to earn money in order to buy things for the classroom or the playground. One of the ways they earn money for the classroom is through the Box Tops for Education program. I save our Box Tops throughout the school year and turn them in at the end of each grading period.
Box Tops for Education has always been a simple way for families to help raise money for schools. Since Box Tops are on many of the products we buy every day, the only extra effort involved is cutting off the Box Top and sending it in.
There are a lot of products that we already buy that help support schools. Reynolds Kitchens and Hefty proudly support the Box Tops for Education which means they are big supporters of schools.
What I love about all of these products help support school and have Box Tops on them. I love that I can buy products that I love and I can help support Tati’s school at the same time.
Even better, from now through August 29, you can enter to be one of 50 daily instant winners and enter to win the grand prize of $1,000 worth of Box Tops for your school! There will be a total of five schools will be chosen for the grand prize and you can enter once a day until 8/29. Be sure to bookmark the site and enter daily. Entering is easy, just click here
I homeschool my kiddos, and we do school year round. Keeping organized is even more important because we do not have any downtime really. I am constantly reorganizing our homeschool supplies. I also just bought new stuff at the back-to-school sales. I do save our Box Tops to give to our local schools.
My kids still aren’t awake! We definitely need to work on the bedtime routine and the morning rush.
These are all great tips. I love that you can collect Box Tops all year round too, our school saves a ton of those and makes some good extra cash for our school using Box Tops!
Guys please stop reminding me that I have to go back to work soon…LOL. Just yesterday I was saying here comes summer and yet here we are again!
These are some great tips! I think the idea of getting used to bedtime and morning routine would be especially helpful for kids returning to school.
Great tips. My girls start school Monday and we just got the school supply list last night. So the entire town was at Target and Walmart buying school supplies last night.
I am the head of fundraising for my daughters elementary school and wanted to pass another easy no stress way to earn money for your school. Besides Box Tops for Educatiom we do Shoparoo. Shoparoo is an app that you download to your phone, then you snap pictures of receipts (grocery stores, restaurants, department stores etc) and upload them to the app. Each receipt earns points and points add up to money. Our school got a check for $200 the first year and $600 the second year. This year we are almost to a $400 check. It’s such an easy no stress way to earn money for your school. If you have any questions feel free to ask and I will answer as best as I can. Also Shoparoo.com had a FAQ section.
Meal planning so SO SMART! We do it now but I bet for back to school its even more helpful!
Planning meal time is smart. Things don’t go smoothly when I try to wing it.
I love the idea of buying school supplies online. While I haven’t done it yet, I’ve been seeing some hard to pass up deals!
Shopping for clothes and supplies early is a must. There is no way to be prepared for back to school if you don’t start in advance.