Bag It Foward with Elmer’s #cfk #bagitforward

It’s that time of year again and the new school year is upon us. This year is exciting for us because our sweet P is starting her first year of preschool. She will be attending school at our church and I couldn’t feel any happier about it. She has been so excited about this big girl change! When I told her about going shopping for school she could not wait and I went back to the excitement I had as a kid and even throughout college. This feeling also got me thinking about all the kids that do not get to experience back-to-school shopping and kids that never have their own supplies. I was recently introduced to Champions for Kids, an organization that encourages you to “bag it forward”. While you’re out shopping for your school supplies this year they ask that you create a second bag for a child or organization in need. Having the essential school supplies helps children feel confident and the Bag It Forward campaign aids children across America to help them grow by having a happy and healthy school experience.

Payton and I headed out to go school shopping, but the catch was, she had to pick-out enough supplies for two students and additional to donate to her school. I knew that Walmart would have the best prices on back-to-school essentials. To see our entire shopping trip head on over to my google+ album.

While the shopping list for a preschooler isn’t very big, there were a few items that were required by the school. Based on our classrooms unique list we needed to purchase a 2-3 gallon bucket and a 1″ binder. However, we know that every preschooler needs plenty of glue, crayons, scissors, paint and markers for their exploratory learning. By shopping at Walmart, I was able to purchase enough supplies for three children and an abundance for the school for under $100.

Walmart has great pricing on school supplies and while I could have purchased non-Crayola products to further my dollar I chose to donate what we always use at home. Most of the supplies started at .50 and did not go over $2, which is nice if you have multiple school aged children.

The bucket building process was so fun to do with my daughter and it felt even better dropping everything off to her school. I knew that if the preschool couldn’t use a particular item that it could be allocated somewhere else on campus since our church offers a preschool-12 program.