Every year schools are full of robust lost and found closets. Before kids head off to school, make sure anything you want to keep is labeled. That means everything from backpacks and lunch boxes to jackets and gym clothes. You might even want to label their regular clothes, too. You shouldn’t label the common supplies that everyone in their class will share. Not sure, which fall under that category? Ask the teacher at Meet the Teacher night and bring a Sharpie with you for any emergency labeling that needs to be done.
InchBug makes Orbit labels that fit around bottles or sippy cups.
Why label at all?
Kids often forget what they brought with them or what their stuff looks like. We also know that parents tend to shop at the same places. You’ll probably have at least one other kid in the school who has the same backpack as your child, even though you think it’s the most unusual one yet.
And if you have a child starting daycare or preschool, you really need to get labeling, especially clothes, food containers and bottles.
Austin-based InchBug, has personalized labels that stick on clothing labels, that fit around bottles and sippy cups, and that stick on whatever you need them to. You might have seen founder Brenda Lee Feldman on “Shark Tank” last spring.
Even if you use something as simple as a permanent marker to label kids’ stuff, consider not just putting your child’s name, consider adding your phone number as well. That way, if the jacket gets lost on the way to school, the finder can contact you.
Also consider not putting your child’s first name on their stuff and just using your last name. That way, you can pass items down from one child to the next. You also aren’t risking a stranger coming up to your child and calling her by her first name just because he read your child’s name on her backpack.
For more back to school tips, check out our back to school site, austin360.com/backtoschool.
