Community Chat

[brandiwine]

My how times have changed.  The lists at the local office supply store for each grade is insane.  Not only all the supplies, but Kleenex and anti-bacterial garbage.  I guess soap in the bathroom isn't any good anymore.  Parents are spending close to a $100 per elementary school student.  We are having school supply drives to help those who can't afford it.  Exactly where does the huge amount of tax money go?  Teachers in our area certainly aren't getting it.  Now "administration" is raking it in with salaries and "expense accounts".  Yes, I do know because I worked in a district for 12 years.  Crazy waste of money.

[Magga1234]

Oh you are not alone! I retired from teaching a few years ago and I love browsing the Back to School sales! Also enjoy pens, paper etc.  The  glue you describe sounds like rubber cement...Those were the days!

[nana59]

i remember getting a pencil box that had a drawer.....special memories....these days my grandkids get a list from school with very specific supplies to buy......what kind of memory does that make......i donate kleenex and bacterial wipes to their classrooms...how times have changed.....

[deeva]

I remember that glue. I think it was called muscilage and was amber in color. I loved my Nifty notebook.

[shoesnbags]

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@jeanlake wrote:

Ask me about state capitols --- my elementary ed pencil box had big stars and capitol names on each state and I adored it.

Remember Nifty notebooks that snapped open and shut? Teacher had to tell me to stop snapping it a couple of times. Loved it. 

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YES!!!!  This is what I was about to post about.  I can remember so clearly the first year these were available (late 50s or early 60s?) and how much I loved it.  Sooooo different from those ring binders we'd had before.  So MODERN, ha ha.  Seems like they only lasted a few years, though, before ring binders became the standard again.  Or maybe I just got tired of the Nifty magnetic ones?  

Oh yeah, and the peacock ink!  That was my other big love when it came to school supplies.  I loved school, so back to school was a happy time for me.

[SilleeMee]

I went to the schools that were located on military posts. I was a military brat. They paid for everything. All we had to do is show up for class.

What I used to look forward to was the smell of those 'ditto copies' the teachers would hand out....lol! 

[bmorechick]

Love this thread. Yep I remember it fondly. Went to Catholic school all 12years and couldn’t have the nifty notebooks. Nuns insisted on the black marble composition books and no spiral bound notebooks either!  I remember we carried those briefcase looking bookbags and we loved the smell of the new one if you didnt use last years!  We shopped at Kravitz shoe store uptown Baltimore for our saddle shoes and Epsteins for the peter pan collar puff sleeved blouses and uniforms. Wow...

[house_cat]

I went to an old NYC school in the 1960s. We had the cut-outs on our desks for the ink wells, but we had ball point pens. I thought those ink wells were there from the Stone Age. It only occurred to me when I read your post that my mom and dad must have used them, lol.

Geez, shame on me.

I'm a teacher and school supplies cost me an average of $200 at the beginning of each school year, but I still love buying them. For me, it's the 🎶 most wonderful time of the year 🎶 .

Somewhere around the fourth or fifth day of the new school year, the excitement of the new notebooks and pencil case wears off and kids realize, "Oh, yeah... I remember this!" I have to admit, it's the same for the teachers....

[suzyQ3]

I was a budding obsessive-compulsive and loved organizing my school supplies every semester. I have a vague memory of my dad taking me to a particular store whose owner he knew to buy my stash.

Flashback to those awful reinforcers you had to use when your three-holed notebook paper ripped out a hole.

[Coopsmommy]

I loved the excitement of starting a new school year, lots of anticipation, but being the youngest of five children, I remember really stressing out that my parents could afford school supplies for all of us. We got the bare minimum and I remember how embarrassed I would be always running out of paper and pencils. 

When I had my own sons (and now 2 young grandsons) we absolutely love going school clothes and supplies shopping. I've always made it my mission that they've had everything they need and more. I also donate quite a bit of basic supplies to each teacher's room as well because it is as simple as some children (families) do not have means to buy them and that should be the last thing a young child should worry over.

However, I do fondly remember how fun it was picking out my lunchbox......I would lament over the choice for weeks!