5 Back to School Supplies That We Wish We Had Growing Up

This is a sponsored post in partnership with Staples. All opinions are my own.

Growing up in the 80's and 90's I was always excited for the first day of school. Although we didn't have a ton, I always had the necessary school supplies and a new t-shirt to wear when summer was coming to a close.  I used to love throwing on that No Fear shirt (I never was able to get a Hypercolor one) and opening up that new binder and fresh pack of #2 pencils. Well today my kids don't know how good they have it with everything that's available at their local Staples during this time of year. Here are just a few of the school supplies that I wish I had growing up!

Jansport Digital Burrito

This digital burrito (play the video above to understand why it is a burrito) is everything you would want going back to school. It helps keep all of your cords, earbuds, chargers, stylus, and more organized...and it rolls up to become one of the greatest foods in history! When I was growing up in the 80's do you know what we had to use to organize our stuff? Yellow paper folders with generic high school sports stars on the front. Who remembers those? 

Staples Fun Animal and Pencil Shaped Erasers

An eraser is just an eraser, right? WRONG! At no point growing up did I ever have access to erasers with arms and legs that moved, or that were able to be taken apart and rebuilt. My youngest desperately wants these just to play with as toys. The only erasers that I remember either came at the end of a pencil, or were pink wedges. If you were really lucky you got to choose a different colored eraser cap that went on the end of your pencil when the original was worn down to the metal. 

Character Themed USB Drives

File this under being born in the wrong decade. When I was in elementary school, the high tech kids either had Speak & Spells or calculator watches. Now at Staples you can get USB drives shaped like Trolls and Star Wars. I can't think of a better way to carry your digital projects to school. 

Poppin Sticky Memo Note Ball

This isn't just your typical pile of sticky notes. This is a literal ball of sticky notes giving you multiple choices of how you want your notes to look. Plus, it sits on your desk, or in your locker, and you have easy access to whatever color note you would like. When I was middle school in the 90's we had to write our notes on binder paper that was folded into fun designs that also kept the contents hidden from prying eyes. Actually that did take quite a bit of talent to fold them like that!

Staples Mermaid Sequin Journal

Journals were where you wrote your deepest, darkest secrets, or scribbled your best doodles while your biology teacher was emphatically speaking about the amphibian life cycle. If I had a journal with a cover like this from Staples, I'm pretty sure I would just run my hand back and forth on it all class period. The most creative cover I had while in school was a brown paper bag, cut into pieces, and taped together to cover my text books. Who else is with me on using those?

All kids today know is the convenience of jumping in the car and quickly heading down to Staples for the awesome sale that is happening that particular week. They don't understand the back-to-school difficulties that us, as parents, went through when we were their age. I guess that it is up to us to remind them that we had to walk to back-to-school sales uphill both ways when we were young. It is also up to us as parents to remember to enjoy the experience as well because before we know it, we will be buying school supplies for their dorm rooms at college. 

#fatherhood