Back to School with Mabels Labels
*Thank you Mabel's Labels for gifting us labels to review and share.
I don't know about you, but we are still struggling with the decision on whether to send our oldest back to preschool or homeschool. If you follow me on Instagram than you know that we started with a private teacher for homeschool type learning with a few other neighborhood kids. It is a great alternative and something to look into if you don't think you can homeschool yourself. Personally, I know I could but I would rather let someone else do it. I also like that there are a few kids so my daughter gets the social component. It would also be difficult for her to concentrate on her education while her younger sister would be working on something else because of the age gap.
This isn't definite for us for the school year. We are trying it out for a month to see how it works and to also evaluate the situation as it gets closer to September. Some daycares and schools have already started and we want to watch the number of Covid cases in our area. We know that the preschool is taking all the necessary precautions and the school has only 2 classrooms with a max of 10 kids per class. Teachers will be wearing masks at all time. The kids are encouraged but not required. I also know that the parents of the kids in her school are just as cautious as we are for the safety of our families. As of right now we are leaning towards the homeschool/pandemic pod route.
Regardless of what we choose to do, the whole back to school thing is entirely different. In the past, kids would share pencils, erasers, markers, crayons, scissors...etc... This year the kids will not be sharing. In some schools, the school is providing materials and then asking you to replenish what your kids uses, while in other schools, you provide the materials. Since we don't exactly know our plans, we decided to do a little online back to school shopping.
For everything that my daughter takes to school or takes to the "pandemic pod" we labeled with her name. If she drops a pencil on the floor and another kid has the same type, she will know which is hers because her name is on it. For her crayons we did a fun rainy day activity where we removed all the wrappers and applied our own. I purchased this
on Etsy and edited it in Canva on my computer.
This was actually a fun quarantine activity because she got to peel all the crayons and make a big mess. Plus we got to make all the crayons "her own" and design them with mermaids and all the things she loves. It was a bit tedious to put the labels back on because you had to apply glue to the label without getting it on the crayon. I think next time I would get roll on tape or something like that.
The rest of our school supplies we used
. The quality is amazing and they have a number of designs to choose from for all ages. They also offer combo label packs which are great if you need to label clothing, school supplies, and water bottles. We absolutely love the shoe labels. They really help with teaching your kids to put their shoes on the correct feet My oldest has a crown and a donut and they are cut in half so when you put the shoes together it forms the full shape. If you line them up backwards then you don't get a crown or a donut.
We used the
for most of our school supplies. It fit the PaperMate Handwriting pencils perfectly. They are also a really good size for the Crayola Twistable Crayons and Colored Pencils.
We use the larger labels for water bottles and cups to make sure that if the kids happen to have the same as as another child, they don't get mixed up. They are waterproof and dishwasher safe. We also have clothing labels inside the kids jackets and extra school clothing. They are very durable but you also don't notice them on your clothing.
Whether you are sending your kids back to school, homeschooling, or doing a "pandemic pod" I definitely recommend labeling their items, especially water bottles. You may take a trip to the playground in the future and set down the water bottle only to see that another child has the same one. They are also good for name identification and learning to spell names.
Note: On our actual school supplies it has my kids names. For social media and blogging I don't use thier names which is why the examples above say B and G. You can use my code DIAPERSANDDONUTS for 10% off (excludes stamps).
