This shop is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group® and Office Depot, but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #inspirestudents https://my-disclosur.es/OBsstV

My kids start school this week!! Any one else starting this week?? Now that the backpacks are purchased and new clothes are ready, don’t forget those fabulous teachers who will be teaching and helping your children for the next 9 months. Teacher gifts for the first day of school have become a tradition around here. Last year we gave them highlighters with a cute tag and the year before we made these cute pencil cans. Or these gumball pencil tubes are a fun idea too!

This year for our teacher gifts, I headed to my local Office Depot to pick up some supplies for our teacher gifts. If you’ve read any of my other posts on this here blog, you’ll know that I LOVE the Office Depot that’s just a few minutes from my house. I get all my printing done there and I’m a huge fan of their Small Business Program and the Office Depot Rewards Program, where you earn points for purchases and copy/print services that you use. On this shopping trip, I picked up some of my favorite Sharpies, mechanical pencils for my son, some cool new EXPO Window markers and a few goodies for myself Almost everything I bought was on sale for great prices, too!

This week at Office Depot/Office Max, save $5 Off your purchase of $20 or more on Select Newell Rubbermaid Brands (PaperMate, Expo Neon Window Markers, Sharpie, Uni-Ball, & Mr. Sketch) AND all Sharpie singles are $.25 (while supplies last) – you know I’ll be stocking up on those Sharpies because I love them so!

With all the new names to learn and supplies that are used in the classroom, I thought teachers could use a little help keeping everything organized. So I made some printable labels, cut them out and had them laminated at my local Office Depot. SAVINGS ALERT: There’s a coupon in the newspaper this week for 40% off laminating services in the copy/print center – that’s awesome!

I decided to have the tags laminated so that teachers (or you at home!) could re-use the labels in the future. Use the EXPO Window markers I bought, or any other form of Dry-Erase marker to easily wipe and re-write.

Bundle your laminated labels together with a fun binder clip and wrap the markers and labels with a cute bow.

Add our colorful printable tag and you’re all set to start the year off “bright”!

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This shop is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group® and Sharpie, but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #SharpieClearview https://my-disclosur.es/OBsstV

OK ladies, I discovered something that I absolutely LOVE about summer and I just have to share it with you! I discovered the art of how to get kids to help with household chores and tasks!! We started something new at our house this summer that I have just loved and I’m a little sad to have the kids go back to school for this reason. I decided that my kids had to get a list of things done before they could play with friends or with their electronic devices and it has been wonderful! I think it worked well because of the ages of my kids – they’re 11, 9 & 7 so they can all do a variety of household chores now.

They each had a list of things that had to get done every day (like put their breakfast dishes away, brush their teeth, make their bed, pick up their room, read for 20 minutes, empty the dishwasher, etc.) plus 2-3 other “cleaning chores”. And I just have to tell you that my house has never been cleaner, seriously!! They do the normal things like dust and vacuum and wipe down bathrooms, etc. but then I added things like wipe down the baseboards, vacuum around the baseboards, wipe down the doors, clean the light switches, dust around the tops of walls, etc.

Now that school is just around the corner (9 days to be exact, but who’s counting?!) our routine will have to change a bit, so I created a task list for each child so they could remember the things that need to get done in the morning before school and in the evening after school and activities.

I wanted to create a specific area where we could keep these fun new charts so that they were easily accessible, portable and motivating. I added removable clear plastic hooks to the back of my pantry door in our kitchen, which is where all the action takes place at our house. I then clipped the task lists to some clipboards and added a Sharpie Clearview highlighter to each clipboard with a piece of twine. This way the kids can take the clip boards down easily when they’re ready to mark off their tasks and they always have a highlighter close by to check off their progress. I got my Sharpie Clearview highlighters on sale at Walgreens – gotta love that!!

The kids were all actually pretty excited about the new system and I think it’ll keep them on track for the new school year and the new schedules.

I have a blank task list that you’re welcome to download and use at your house to help keep you and your kids organized and on a new schedule for the start of the school year. I know it’ll help minimize the chaos at our house when school starts back up and the kids are wanting to play with friends or on their devices. All I have to do is ask them to make sure their tasks are completed and we both have an easy way to check that!

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My kids are going back to school today (yay!!) and I like to do a little gift for their new teachers, just to let them know we’re excited to have them as our teacher this year.  I try to give something useful so they don’t just go home and throw it away. I came up with a fun way to give something that is always needed in the classroom – pencils!

I’m loving neon right now, so I decided to go with a neon color scheme for our gift idea, but obviously you can use whatever colors you would like.

For this project you only need a few things: a tin can, kraft paper, washi tape and pencils.

I would recommend a 14.5 oz tomato can (or similar) to hold the pencils. Wash the can thoroughly and dry.

Step 1 – Wrap washi tape around the top of your pencils.

Step 2 – Trim ends of tape into a point.

Step 3 – Measure and cut kraft paper to fit can – approx. 4 1/8″ by 9 3/4″.

Step 4 – Wrap kraft paper around can using double sided tape to secure.

Step 5 – Adhere washi tape to can.

Step 6 – Admire your work!

Put your pencils in your new, cute container and attach a little tag with a clothespin.

If you’re not into neon or washi tape, simply use a piece of scrapbook paper instead and tie the tag with a ribbon.

You can download the printable tags HERE.

Now you have a simple gift your child can take with them on the first day of school. Your teacher will love it!

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I’m sharing a fun Back To School teacher gift idea over at SNAP! today – pencils in a cute container with a printable tag in either a neon color scheme or your traditional school colors.

Download the free tags and cut out with a 2.5″ paper punch.

Pencil Labels

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