Quality Back To School Products For Kids

Today I am sharing my favourite quality nack to school products for kids!!

Are you ready for the kids to go back to school? I swear Oliver has been home more than at school this year and I think we BOTH are ready for him to return to in-school learning.

Despite him being home and not using his school supplies as long as he usually does, I still believe investing in quality supplies is totally worth the $$. Oliver will be entering grade 3 this year and he is still using most of the supplies we purchased when he first started school in Junior Kindergarten!

Over the past 5 school years, we have only ever upgraded or added to his school supply list. This means a bigger backpack when he reached grade school or adding a thermos for warm foods. We have NEVER had to repurchase an item because something broke or worn out.

The average Canadian spends roughly $500 on back-to-school products each YEAR! I have spent approximately $400 over the last 5 years since we are able to reuse each year. That’s almost $2100 in savings!

Plastic Free Lunches

We prioritize buying items that are quality and plastic-free for our home so it only made sense to carry that into Oliver’s school supplies. This means no plastic sandwich containers or water bottles. We settled on these stainless steel lunch boxes and are happy we did! They have lasted the whole five years and are still going strong! They are perfect for fruit, veggies, and dry goods that Oliver loves in his lunches.

We’ve slowly added in these stainless steel round pod containers for canned fruits and yogurt, as well as the popular Yeti water bottle.

School Storage

Backpacks and lunch bags take a beating. During Oliver’s first 2 years of school, I purchase a semi-popular brand name and it ended up with holes and tears after his second year. Fail. After lots of research, I settled on this beautiful Fjallraven Kanken Backpack in Orchre from Well.ca. It has served us so well in not only lugging his school supplies back and forth to school but on days trips, traveling, and more. It is so easy to clean and the quality is phenomenal. I can confidently say that this backpack will last longer than Oliver can use it. When it comes time to purchase a bigger backpack when he is a teenager, I will be continuing with this brand.

We just recently upgraded Oliver’s lunch bag as his old one wasn’t big enough for how much food he needed at school anymore. We opted for the Roots Deluxe Insulated Lunch Box Bag which will fit all of his snack and lunch items perfectly.

Quality vs. Quanity

I believe that spending a little more on quality products serves us better than multiple cheap items in many ways.

Less clutter – We don’t need more things in the house that seves the same purpose. It just added more clutter in the cupboards and more opportunities to become lost and forgotten! Less clutter = a stress free home
Less to clean – If we have the opportunity to use items without washing them, the dirty dishes can pile up. By only having one set of school supplies we are forced to wash, dry and reuse the next day, leaving no dirty containers to sit.
Saves money – As I mentioned above, the intial investment of quality items may seem daunting, especially if you have multiple children, but you will save hundreds over the long run.