Label all the school supplies? or not...

Well, it's that time all across the world no doubt - back to school.

For us, that means our homeschool. For others, public or private schools.

This year, we've decided to try out a co-op and will be going to "Enrichment Classes" each Friday for 10 Fridays this fall. They run from about 8:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. or so. Some classes the children are going to be involved in require some supplies, therefore a trip to Wal-mart last Friday was in order to make sure we had everything. Each of the older 3 children got a "supply box" and their supplies that would be separate from the things we use in our own schooling, just to make things easier on us so we're not rummaging for these things every Thursday night to pack them up for Fridays. Some of the items include pencil, scissors, glue, gluestick, crayons, colored pencils...you get the idea...standard "school supplies." So...last year CKB brought home a label maker for me and I thought this would be the perfect time to put it to good use. It's been used here and there over the past year, but overall, we haven't had a huge need for it.

So...Friday afternoon I set out to label their supplies. And, I labeled....everything...almost. When CKB came home and saw what had been done, he admitted to being somewhat surprised that I'd labeled EVERYTHING. My reasoning is that I know how the children operate. I know that everything is NOT going to stay in those boxes. It WILL get scattered on the tables during their classes. Markers DO roll away. Children DO share and/or pick up things that they think look neat, etc. I KNOW everything isn't going to stay neatly in those boxes. It's inevitable. So, I labeled everything. Yes, each pencil, each colored pencil, each marker, each glue bottle, each gluestick, each box on the outside...you get the picture. I did NOT, however, put a label on each and every crayon in the box of 24, but just put a label on the box itself. I KNOW they're never going to put them all back in the box, but crayons are just too small to label every one of them and they break so easily...it just seemed futile and a bit of overkill to do that.

So....who's with me and would've done the same thing? Anyone? Who thinks it was a bit of overkill? What have you done in similar situations? How did it all turn out w/your child's supplies?

This week I'll be "labeling" the children's new backpacks since I have NO DOUBT that one of them WILL leave theirs in a classroom since they're not used to having to keep up w/anything like this. I found a few options for marking the packs that don't involve "markers" but I didn't find what I was hoping to, which was square or round patches with letters on them that I could just sew on w/their initials. Anyone know where to find these? I checked Wal-mart and Jo-Ann Fabrics. I have until the 5th of Sept., but want to get it done sooner rather than later. No sense in waiting 'til the last mn.!

So, if you have a minute, take the little quiz/poll over there ----> (it's at the top)
and let me know how YOU label. Then, if you have one more minute, leave a comment and tell me what you've done, how it worked out, what you would do differently next time, what you never thought you needed to label, but wish you had...that sort of thing. If anyone knows where to get patches w/letters on them, please let me know. I still have a little time to change gears if I decide to.

I thought about having their initials embroidered onto the packs, but I think that would definitely cost more than the packs themselves!

Looking forward to hearing from some of y'all!