Back-to-School Shopping

Schools in New Zealand start the new academic year in early February. M is moving up to intermediate school, and H will be in Year 6. Year 1 enrollment timing varies depending on the child's birthday - J, whose birthday falls early in the year, is set to start school in March.

After the end-of-year ceremony, schools upload next year's stationery lists to their websites early and send notifications through the Hero app. With three kids, the combined list is quite substantial. The lists surprisingly specify brands in detail, though this serves more as a guideline for the quality level expected rather than a strict requirement to buy those exact brands.

If you don't have time to shop around carefully, you can purchase pre-made packs through Warehouse Stationery. However, since we had some supplies left over at home and wanted to browse, the whole family headed to Warehouse Stationery. After picking up notebooks on back-to-school sale and some basic stationery items at both the Warehouse and Warehouse Stationery, our next stop was K-mart. The scientific calculator for Year 7 that was $39 at WS was nearly half price there, and they had a much better selection of magnetic whiteboard erasers at lower prices. Since driving between stores is necessary, it's worth checking stock and prices on each store's website before heading out.

Once you haul everything home, it's labeling time. I spent ages sticking on name labels that I'd brought in bulk from Korea. For items like pens and glue sticks, you need to put small name labels on both the body and the cap to prevent capless pens from drying out. Name labels on clear rulers go over the barcode, and calculators need labels on both the body and the stand.

Even after all this initial preparation, throughout the year you'll occasionally get notifications that certain items are running low in the classroom or that students generally need more of something. I made it a habit to ask the kids every month or two if they needed any supplies topped up at school. Whiteboard markers run out the fastest, so it's worth grabbing an extra bundle when they're on sale.

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