Summer vacation is flying by and back to school is just around the corner again, already! Each year it’s a little hard for your kids or teens to say goodbye to the sunny days full of adventures. But fortunately, there are lots of great school supplies to brighten up their school days.
Preschool
Let’s start with a fun back to school idea for the littlest ones. Since they don’t yet know how to read, each toddler or young child is assigned a class symbol. Print this symbol together with their name on the napkin stickers (= 24 identical stickers) and stick them on their belongings so that nothing will ever get lost again. Or next to nothing. 🙂
The reward chart with princesses or monsters is a handy tool to use at home or in the classroom as a playful way to motivate kids to help clean up, be kind to others, successfully complete a task, etc.
Primary school
As for your primary school students, on the first day of school, they can show off this home-made craft box or storage box.
What do you need to make it?
- A biscuit tin
- Sturdy paper in A3-format (and a printer that works with it)
- This document
- Little things you want to be sure not to lose
First of all, order a cookie tin and give your son or daughter’s summer experiences a place on the cover. You can also use a beautiful self-made drawing (read how to do it in this blogpost).
Then print this document on a sturdy sheet of A3-paper and cut and fold the compartments as instructed, so that everything fits neatly inside the biscuit tin. For extra reinforcement, tape the compartment dividers together with small pieces of tape in the corners. For larger objects, you can leave out the rectangular divider and tape the other dividers to the sides.
Voilà! You can use this personal craft box to store everything neatly: crayons, eraser, colouring pencils, flashcards with maths games or reading cards, craft materials, puzzles, …
Are you looking for more original school supplies for your little darling? Here you go!
- Keyring: hang it on their schoolbag, gym bag or lunch bag so nobody takes it by mistake
- Pencil case
- Lunch box
- Ruler with a filmstrip of your summer vacation
- Kid’s apron that also works as a smock for crafts or painting
- Notepad to keep homework colourfully organised
- Cereal bowl with a funny message to do away with grumpy mornings!
- Kids labels to add a personal touch to books
Secondary school
For teens, school can be serious business. Not only do they have to keep up with the latest fashion trends, have the right accessories and master the latest hip lingo, but they also have to learn how to study. And preferably as efficiently as possible so that there’s plenty of time left over for hobbies, watching TV and chatting.
A good way to understand lessons and memorise them is to create a summary each day. To do this, use a personalised notebook that you make yourself by giving our recipe book a twist. The book has six chapters with a large photo for each one, a table of contents and 10 double pages for notes.
Create this book together with your son/daughter by giving each chapter the name of a subject and replacing the text fields by, for example:
- Table of contents
- Summary
- Homework
- Title of the lesson
- Notes
- Teacher’s nickname 😉
The personal flair of this notebook will encourage the student to review the latest lessons after school. And thanks to the small note pages, it’s a great way to practise writing brief summaries of lessons. What’s more, when it’s exam time, it makes a handy pocket buddy with a brief overview of the most important subjects.
You can use the blank field on the left for doodling in class or to add some great pictures from the latest summer vacation. To do that, just order the rectangle, vertical stickers available from smartphoto after you’ve finished the layout for your notebook.
Other personalised goodies for teens include:
- Stickers as an original touch on your book covers
- Shoulder bag
- Calendar in a wooden block: don’t forget to mark the school vacations in highlighter pen 😉
- Makeup bag as a large pencil case
- Pen holder: put a motivational message on each of the three sides, and turn it so that the one that’s the most motivating at that moment is facing you. For example: Nearllllly the weekeeeend!!! Or how about: don’t stress, do your best, forget the rest.
- Deskpad
- Tote bag for gym class
- Conference folder
- Notebook
