Your Back to School Shopping Checklist: Go from Summer to Fall with Ease

We love our kids, you love your kids – we all love our kids. But we are all, also, very excited to have them back to school. That said, transitions aren’t always smooth and managing everyone’s anxieties is key. With that in mind we’ve rounded up some back-to-school finds that will make adjusting to this year’s back-to-school routine a lot easier and whole lot more fun.

If you have a toddler you know that any small thing can turn into a negotiation of epic proportions (we’ve heard a trip to Disney being offered for a single trip to the potty – no joke). If you need something to convince your little ones to put on their shoes or get dressed or get into the car seat, the just-launched Music Set from Lovevery will fit the bill. It takes the brand’s innovative approach to brain development and applies it to music learning.

Research shows that early exposure to music brings serious benefits to children’s development including speech, spatial reasoning, early math and pattern recognition, self-regulation, impulse control and more. The set includes real instruments like a pan flute, bells and shakers.

On the note of emotion regulation, Slumberkins is offering an ever-growing collection of resources to help children and their families reinforce healthy attachments and positive beliefs about themselves and the world. For example, they have a new cooperative game (players work together as a team instead of against each other) and “Kinspiration Kits,” a quarterly subscription designed by therapists and educators to foster confidence and regulate emotions, which tend to go awry around back-to-school.

Moving from emotional health to physical health, it’s imperative for all parents to have a touchless thermometer on hand and we’re loving the new IPROVEN Pro Series, which works reliably for all ages. Ditto for the Babylist First Aid Kit and Welly First Aid Kit, which are loaded with essentials like gauze, alcohol wipes, bandages, ibuprofen and ointment.

Of course there’s no talking about back-to-school without talking about a backpack. Maybe they outgrew their old ones or maybe they just look a little rough from the previous school year. Either way, Wanderwild is coming to your kid’s rescue. Durable and made from recycled material, their styles have an ergonomic design that makes carrying them comfortable. They also have space to personalize with name, initials or monogram.

As for lunchboxes, PackIt – known for their gel-lined, freezable, foldable lunch bags and totes –  are always favorites, especially with their kid-friendly designs while b.box has insulated food jars in a seemingly endless assortment of colors and patterns. Meanwhile Stephen Joseph has just about the cutest flip top stainless steel bottles – we’re talking themes ranging from leopard to dino, and they stand up to staining and smells from the messiest eaters.

On the fashion front you’ll have a guaranteed Instagram moment with evsie’s Girls Back To School Graphic Tee (and it’s just $5!) as well as Happy Threads, another affordable children’s apparel brand that holds licenses for some of your kids’ favorite movies and TV shows including  Star Wars, Harry Potter, DC Comics and Disney. Robeez will match Happy Threads with their shoes, many of which have been designed in partnership with the likes of Star Wars, NBA and Marvel.

For something a bit more feminine, MIA Shoes has some of the best Golden Goose doppelgangers we’ve ever seen with their Lil Sparklee style sneakers and Monica + Andy, a pioneer in the organic clothing movement, just launched a new limited edition range of prints, along with mix-and-match essentials including ones with pencil prints, apple icons and pizza fabrics. Top it all off with some sunnies from, well, Sunnies which are made using anti-slip material, polarized lenses and 100% UVA/UVB protection.

Lastly, in this tech-forward post-Covid era your kid will come to swear by ONANOFF’s School+ Wireless Headphones, which are durable, easy-to-use, have a good battery life, come in multiple colorways and have a detachable boom mic.

We saved arguably the most important thing for last (besides a jug-sized vat of espresso for us parents) – custom name labels. We love Name Bubbles because they combine fun, colorful designs with durability and they have plenty of shapes and sizes, so you can stick them on just about anything from clothes to notebooks.