Back to School

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My two oldest, Henry and Emma, headed back to school this week. I know most of us with kids are in that same boat or are starting soon, whether virtually or in person!

Here are a few things I do to try to make this hectic and exciting time run smoothly.

1. Meal Plan
2. Lunch Prep
3. Snacks
4. New Clothes and Shoes
5. Accident Clothes
6. School Supplies
7. Special Notes
8. First Day Pictures
9. Tradition
10. Free Printables For You!

1 Meal Plan

Are you a big meal planner? Do you do it by the week? Two weeks? Month!? NIGHT!??? Yikes, I couldn’t handle that, but would love to hear how you do if you do! I find weekly works well for us. I always try to have a few meals on hand for an easy dinner like I talked about here, and oatmeal can easily be a healthy dinner for our family too! Clearly breakfast for dinner goes over well with our crew. Mom hack: if you get the chance to go out on a date this instant pot oatmeal is a great meal to have ready for your babysitter! Set it, and forget it. Not bad clean up either, you could even use paper bowls if you want to go crazy!

So, if you can make sure you meal plan through the first couple days of school. We were coming back from vacation on Saturday, and I was able to meal plan and grocery shop from the passenger seat! Gotta love that, right!? We DoorDashed dinner for that night…gotta love that also!? Then, Sunday I picked up our groceries curbside between doing mountains of laundry. This was our menu for the week:

• Sunday: Chicken thighs, corn on the cob, cucumbers, strawberries
• Monday: Spaghetti and meatballs, steamable broccoli
• Tuesday: Tacos
• Wednesday: Ribs, cole slaw, apple slices
• Thursday: Leftovers and or breakfast for dinner
• Friday: Pizza (Costco, homemade, or frozen…I think it will be Costco because I have a little list running for there)
• Saturday: Leftovers or easy dinner

We actually needed to switch Wednesday and Thursday’s meal, but otherwise have stuck to it and it is Friday now and the fridge is feeling less full for sure. I would like to consistently go to the store on a specific day of the week, but it still seems to change for us a lot. Sometimes we can stick with it for a while. I love the idea of “full fridge” Friday, have you heard of that? I am a sucker for alliteration, ha! I heard about it here. Maybe once we get into the swing of things with school I will get into a rhythm. There are definitely pro/cons of dealing with groceries during the week vs. the weekend. And, I really don’t know which I prefer! How about you?

2 Lunch Prep

Another great thing to do is get school lunches (or even yours) prepped. Not rocket science I know, but it is helpful! Our kids are getting free breakfast and lunch this year again at school because of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and it makes things SO easy. They seem to be liking everything, and we are trying to encourage healthy choices. They were having chocolate milk 2x a day in the spring…and we have asked them to cut back to one.

Otherwise, we would have things ready to be grabbed whether it is from the fridge or pantry. We usually stick to a sandwich, cheese, yogurt, fruit, and vegetable. Five things is easy to remember and I’ve found when we stick to this they can help better and at a younger age. Repetition is good for kids ;)…and lately me, too. It is also pretty similar to lunches when we are home. Yogurts are usually dessert if they make a happy plate!

So, I got to skip this step this year! My littles do not start preschool until September, so we just made sure we had the regular things on hand that we like. When they do start school though my favorite mom hack to make life easier is to make their lunch the day before when I am already making lunch! It doesn’t really take any more effort or time this way. Also, it makes you feel good about yourself like you actually are ahead of the game! If you wait to make it until after dinner it just makes more dishes. If you wait to make it until the morning of it’s just one more thing…nobody needs one more thing in the morning!

My last lunch tip is to just buy those Uncrustables. We all love them. We buy all different flavors. My girls love the honey ones. I do really appreciate the ones made with whole wheat bread and reduced sugar for an even healthier choice. But, even the regular ones aren’t too high in sugar with about 9 or 10 g, and have 6 g of protein which I think is decent. They are the perfect thing to throw in your picnic cooler, too. That used to be such a chore if we had an outing, but now it’s easy peasy! My family will even buy them for when when my kids come over and most likely won’t like what’s being served, lucky them! Do you buy these? Do you have anything else like this that has been a game changer for you?

3 Snacks

My kids are always hungry after school!!! We definitely mix this up and have our fair share of goldfish and pretzels. Most of the time though I slice up a bunch of apples and just let them go to town. I usually just keep them on a big cutting board on the island counter or patio table. Sometimes we throw in veggies like bell peppers, too. This is a nice choice because apples can last a long time in the fridge and are very little prep. I don’t feel bad about letting them fill up on this and it doesn’t seem to spoil their dinner. Last year, my big kids still needed something else too so we started snacking on hard boiled eggs. That has been a great new habit and sometimes I add them to their lunch or dinner depending on what we are having.

Anybody have trouble peeling eggs? I used to follow Pioneer Woman’s methods and would still recommend! However, I thought it might be even easier to try in the Instant Pot. After all, there is an “egg” button. And that’s about all there is to it! So easy. And I haven’t had any trouble peeling to date.

4 New Clothes and Shoes

This is definitely a childhood memory of mine. We all (or at least my sisters) always looked forward to back to school shopping. We would get a whole new outfit and it was something to look forward to doing and then having for the first day. A little confidence boost, too!

I kind of missed the boat on it this year, ha! We were in crazy get ready for beach mode, and then unpacking all. the. things. My kids have been young enough that going shopping hasn’t been a thing they would want to do, and I usually just buy clothes as they need them when they grow. I would still pick out something special the first day for them. It’s one of the few “mom gets to choose your outfit” days!

So, this year in Emma’s zoom meet the teacher her teacher asked how many had new outfits and new shoes for the first day? Uh oh. Emma looked at me kind of puzzled and excited…like should we? Do you have some? And I did NOT. Lol! I actually have a few things tucked away for her birthday at the end of the month, but I thought we were good on clothes. I guess she is getting old enough that this might become something she looks forward to like I always did!

Thank goodness for Target curbside! I added a dress, shoes, and even a headband and she was over the moon. Now, Elle wants the same thing for when preschool starts…

Maybe now that my kids are getting older this will slow down, but I feel like I am CONSTANTLY changing out clothes and getting the next size wardrobe ready. It is such an overwhelming hassle to me. The organization part, not the shopping. The shopping I can handle! Do you have a system down that you like? Has Target curbside saved you?

I think having a new outfit for the first day can be so special, but more importantly making sure whatever size they are in their wardrobe is ready for a new year and that they have comfy play shoes!

5 Accident Clothes

Ever since preschool started we have been packing “accident” clothes. Mostly, though we have spillers…one in particular last year! That chocolate milk! Even my oldest fell in a muddy pile at recess one day, and I am so glad he had these in his bag. Nobody likes to be in any kind of wet clothes!

We pack ours in a gallon zipper bag. This is great because it keeps them dry from anything in their backpack like sweaty water bottles, and it also keeps them collected and out of the way. We have been packing extra masks in a sandwich sized bag inside the bigger bag, too.

It is also nice because then the wet clothes can be returned in something that will not get on anything else…even though some how I found SEVERAL articles of wadded up clothing with chocolate milk in the bottom of a backpack a little too late last school year…yuck. Don’t cry over spilled milk!? Did anybody else have this book as a kid? I still remember it and think about it every time I am cleaning up spilled milk.

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Back to the accident clothes, pro tip: grab the zipper bags from their backpacks when you are off visiting grandparents or the zoo or wherever! I don’t always keep them in my bag for the day for the older ones, but just in the passenger seat of the van. It’s just a nice little peace of mind.

6 School Supplies

Who doesn’t love new school supplies!? We did not order the school pack this year because I thought I could get it cheaper on my own. Our two packs would have been about $100 which seemed like a lot to me. I spent well under that just ordering online from Target and Walmart. Plus, we had a few things on hand. It was a little bit more work, but not really with online ordering. As soon as I saw stuff in Target I ordered so they weren’t out of a bunch of stuff yet.

My kids backpacks have been going strong, I think Henry’s is on his third year now. Obviously a little less use the last two years. I didn’t know they would be quite so bright but we love that we can spot them at pick up! We love walking to school and for some reason I love that their backpacks “match” but are different colors.

Have I told you yet we are big on colors? Henry’s is orange, Emma’s is green, Elle’s is pink, and we just ordered a blue one for Hank. He is over the moon that he is going to school and will turn around and tell you about his backpack whether he has it on or not!

We also used them for our recent vacation and they are a good size for the floor space in front of you in the car. We also knew whose was whose. Emma’s came back with Uncrustable’s peanut butter all over it and I threw it in the wash and just hung it up to dry and it did great!

I wanted to take them to pick out a couple fun or special school supplies things this year, but it just didn’t happen. Oh, well. How do you do school supplies?

7 Special Notes

When my kids first started preschool I was so excited to put little notes in their lunch! I always loved when I had one, often written on my napkin. But guess what, they were only 2 or 3 and couldn’t read and didn’t care haha! So, I stopped! Now that I have readers notes are a DAILY thing. They are special and quick and I do them the morning of. I keep a bunch of sticky notes and pens in a kitchen drawer and it’s is one of the only things I have to do in the mornings before we walk out the door. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy or cute, it’s the words that mean something! I hope it makes them feel a little bit of love while they are at school.

8 First Day Pictures

This is something I do for me! So I can feel a little bit of love while they are at school :). We just take pictures in front of our front door right before we leave. In the outfits I picked out ;). We make sure to have a couple extra minutes (no kid wants to do this any longer than that) before we have to leave.

My mom gave me a good tip early on, to make sure you get individuals of each kid otherwise your second and third and so on kids never have any pictures of just them. The sibling pictures are wonderful, but it is nice to have the individual too!

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I do try to print these out and keep them to look at somewhere. I’d like to get a little something nice to display them and change it out each year. I always feel like we don’t have great wall space for pictures, and then I go back and forth between not wanting our faces plastered everywhere and feeling like we don’t have enough family and kid pictures displayed! Do you take these classic pictures too? Do you display them?

9 Tradition

I think family traditions are important! It doesn’t matter what you do or how grand it is, just do it! I tend to keep things VERY simple because it is all I can handle. I also don’t want to get stressed out by doing it because that kind of defeats the purpose.

I love making chocolate chip cookies. And, eating them. They are my favorite. I almost always have the ingredients to make them on hand. So, the first day of school I always make them for a special (not so healthy) after school snack. I hope this is something they remember and look forward to.

It doesn’t take me very long to whip up a batch, it doesn’t make a lot of dishes, and if I am short on time I can just make one batch and put the rest in the fridge for later. Another reason I like this tradition is because it gives my younger kids something “to do” while the big kids are gone. Some years have been harder than others, and my kids definitely fight, but they really like being together.

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I have done a lot of baking with my girls, Henry never really got interested in it. This was one of my first times to involve Hank though and it was really fun and special. The mess was imminent, but minimal. I find when I bake with kids to have a we will make a mess attitude and then we will clean it up. If you try to constantly say be careful and don’t spill you will lose your patience real fast. But, I still do that too sometimes.

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If you don’t like to bake you could very easily include a special treat in that grocery order when you meal plan as a surprise. They won’t care!

Do you have any back to school traditions? If not, try something simple this year and see how it goes!

10 Free Printables For You!

Just like the pictures, it is nice to have a little keepsake of the little people they are at this moment. Last year we filled out questionnaires and then I put them in their keepsake box. I made something similar this year and wanted to share!

This is fun for everyone to look back on. It doesn’t have to be complicated or even completed before the first day of school. Just the “beginning” of the school year…ish. We use “ish” a lot around here. I hope if you can use it, you like it!

I also made you a printable for your littles if you have any at home. Again, sometimes this can be a hard time for them if they don’t go to school or their school hasn’t started yet. Hopefully it is a little something to fill a bit of your day!

Happy Back to School!!!