When August hits, does anyone else get eager to stock up on school supplies and essentials?! I kind of love it! Fresh boxes of pens, markers, post-its, OHMY!! It also means hitting the town (or computer :D) for new clothes and school gear, so our team put together a collection of our favorites, some of which we go back to year after year! From budget-friendly picks to the latest trends and sustainable choices, we’ve got you covered! *As Amazon Associates and LTK affiliates, we earn commissions from qualifying purchases when you use our links.
TWEENS
Kicking it off with the age we know best! All our kids, for the most part, fall into this category so we’re comfortable and familiar with the items we know and love! We feel particularly confident in tween girls – there’s three of them between us who keep us on our toes!
We polled you ladies and confirmed for us the best places to shop for our tweens. These are the collective retailer favorites:
FAVORITE TWEEN RETAILERS
SPECIFIC ITEMS WE LOVE FOR TWEENS
GIRLS
BOYS
ELEMENTARY
Ah, the sweet spot of kids clothes! They aren’t picky about brands (yet) and they might still let us dress them 😉 Keep it simple here! Clothes that last are KEY! These kids tend to be pretty rough and tumble so we appreciate good deals!
Popular retailers for this age group:
FAVORITE ELEMENTARY RETAILERS
BOYS
GIRLS
TOTS & BABES
While this age group doesn’t necessarily mean “back to school”, now is the time to take advantage of sales and stock up! Whether for day care, play, or just around the house, this group of kiddos gets the “cutest dressed” award. We loved dressing our kids at this age and included some of our favorites that still get the stamp of approval today!
FAVORITE BABE & TOT RETAILERS
Walmart was mentioned time and time again for this age group – especially Garanimals and easy-peasy!
BACKPACKS
We know our favorites and we’ve included those below but we also found some new brands thanks to you! We love it when you ladies recommend items and we can share them, it’s our favorite thing about this community! Backpacks can range in cost and some of you buy new ones each year (with evolving kiddo interests) and others invest in bags that last!
Several followers who are educators did suggest that whatever you spend, buy full size backpacks, even for the smaller kiddos. Those little backpacks are cute but they don’t hold standard size folders, let alone lunches, winter boots, etc. We love that recommendation!
LUNCH BAGS, WATER BOTTLES & ACCESSORIES
Of all our Back-to-School polls, this one got the most responses. You ladies are passionate about your water bottles and labels! We love the 20 oz Stanley for bigger kids but found a lot of you use Simple Modern, so we linked a few of those too! We LOVE Mabels Labels for all your kiddos school supplies, but many of you like Name Bubbles too! We also love that so many of you stick to good ol’ fashioned Sharpies and masking tape – you are our people, LOL!
Hands down, the Lands End lunch bag is your favorite, and ours! There’s a reason we keep coming back to them year after year! When it comes to lunch containers and water bottles, there was one reaction we had from teachers: make sure they can open it independently! Have your kids test their lunch / snack stuff before sending them to school – – we LOVE this tip!
Check out all of our favorite back to school children’s books HERE! There are so many good ones!
We know the end of summer and the start of school can be BUSY for families. We hope this post can be a resource you can continue to come back to, we plan to keep it updated as often as we can!
So, what did we miss?! Let us know your other favorites in the comments!