GREEN MOMS CARNIVAL

Back to Eww! School

WSMS Supply List – Grade 7

  • 1 large zippered 3-ring binder
  • 1 3-ring 1″ binder (for reading class)
  • 1 3-ring 1″ soft cover binder (for science)
  • 1 pencil pouch
  • 9 spiral notebooks
  • 1 3 subject notebook with pocket dividers (for English)
  • 1 ruler with centimeters & inches
  • 1 box of colored pencils or markers
  • 1 compass
  • 4 plain blue pocket folders
  • 1 protractor
  • 2 black pens
  • 1 pair scissors
  • 2 blue pens
  • 1 eraser
  • 2 fine point black markers
  • 2 glue sticks
  • 1 box of regular pencils
  • 1 calculator
  • 2 large boxes of Kleenex
  • 2 highlighters – different colors
  • 1 plain green pocket folder – choir
  • 1 plain pocket folder – general music
  • 1 roll 3/4″ Scotch tape
  • 1 pad of 100 Post-it notes 3″x3″
  • 1 3 subject notebook for both years of Spanish
In our blended family of two children (five, if you count the Ex-wife’s other three) and four parents back to school shopping is split. Ew (Ex-wife) buys the school supplies and Hubby I buy the clothes.

I cringe when the chitlins return home from the summer with their new backpacks stuffed to the gills with all new supplies. The contents of their cheap crappy ass backpacks (that never last past the first week without some major malfunction) never coincide with the list put out by the school. The list is available online, the school mails it out, and every store known to man has it prominently displayed as soon as you walk in the door. She can read, can’t she? Come on!! Could you get it right just for one year, please?! After nine years you think one would get the hang of it. Geesh.

As if that is not irking enough, the amount of resources being wasted drives me up the wall! Every time I hear the zipper on that backpack open for the first time it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. *shivering*

There are so many supplies from previous years stashed in totes in the basement that I could start my own Back to School store. I have stocked my craft room completely from purchases made by Ew, created a kids craft/activity area in the basement from other Ew leftovers, and still have totes full of Ew’s wasted money. She is always complaining they do not have any money. Why then does she spend needlessly?


The chitlins both have large zippered 3-ring binders from last year and previous years that are well enough to reuse this year. We have amassed a pile of half used notebooks. We even have notebooks that are untouched from previous years! I have used all the folders I can for household organizing and still have enough to supply the chitlins for the school year.

One shelf in my workroom contains nothing but 3-ring binders. There are no less than half a dozen plastic rulers floating around the house. The markers/ colored pencils/ crayons got so out of control I started giving them to the school art room and daycares. Pens and pencils. Oy ve! Do we really need to buy more pens and pencils?! I think I can find two black and two blue in there somewhere. A protractor is a protractor; as a compass is a compass. Do you really need a new one every year? Same with calculators. I have yet to see one go bad in a year. In fact, I have yet to see one quit, period.

Why, why, WHY are we bringing more of this stuff into our house? Why is Ew spending money that she does not have on stuff the chitlins already own? It just does not make sense. Never mind the fact that half this crap is plastic and made from virgin materials. What lesson are we teaching our children?

As adults we do not go out and buy all new office supplies just because it is a new year. So, why then with our children? When will it become acceptable to wear the same clothes as last year? Use all of the paper in a notebook before starting another one? Reuse a backpack/binder/folder? Keep the same protractor/compass/calculator throughout your school career? Use markers/colored pencils/crayons until they are gone? These things should be encouraged not looked down upon.

People are quick to judge and have tendencies to slap on the poor label if someone buys secondhand, mends, repurposes, doesn’t have the new latest and greatest. I will revel the day when it is thought shameful to show up for the first day of class wearing the fashions of the moment, sporting a new backpack chock full of pristine bleached white paper, plastic mechanical pencils, a cool new calculator with whatever cartoon/pop star is hot at the moment sprawled across it, glossy folders touting the same, pens, fresh post it notes, and a pvc lunchbox containing a disposable prepackaged lunchable.

My dream school supply list:

For more Back to School musings check out the Green Mom’s Carnival being hosted at Surely You Nest on September 8.

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Tagged as: GREEN MOMS CARNIVAL, GREEN YOUR: SCHOOL SUPPLIES, THE 3 R’s {REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE}, YOU CAN DO IT: SUSTAINABLE LIVING {WASTE REDUCTION}

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