As a mother who has seen 5 children through many school years, I discovered a little tip that helped in a lot of ways:

1. Fast identification
2. Reading skills not needed
3. Clean up  was easier
4. Less things lost or missing

The tip?  To color code your children and their school supplies.  Assign each child a different color (perferably the favorite color of the child).  Purchase EVERYTHING for school in that color.

• backpack
• pencils
• pencil boxes/pouches
• binders
• pencil sharpeners
• calculators

And for those things that do not come in color assortments, purchase colored tape and put the tape on the blue ink pens, crayon boxes, and other supplies.  Color coding is used for many other applications, so why not our children.  They don’t have to read to know that all green supplies belong to them and red supplies to their sibling. Using color coding makes it easy to see who forgot to clean up after homework time and avoid the “That’s mine!” battle cry.  If a green pencil is found under the table, you know which child to return it to.

A simple tip, but one to help your sanity….