Back-to-School classroom essentials at Walmart

This year I’m not only doing back-to-school shopping, I’m doing back-to-the-classroom after being out of it for two years rebuilding. To be honest, I didn’t even know where to start and had to do an intense inventory of what I believe I have in storage and what I need. Thankfully Walmart has me covered in both areas for my back-to-school classroom shopping: needs and wants. Let’s be honest– some items are more essential than others but sometimes having the right products in our classrooms can make all the difference in our students’ engagement and learning.

Weither you’re a teacher starting your back-to-school shopping or a parent, guardian, or community member looking to support students and teachers, Walmart is your one-stop shop for building your classroom, stocking up on all your back-to-school supplies essentials, and adding some super cute new attire to your fall teacher wardrobe. Between Walmart’s every day low prices and unbelievable rollback deals, you can accomplish all your back-to-school shopping needs while staying within a teacher’s budget…even if you aren’t a teacher! Does it get any better than that?

It does actually. Walmart has made it incredibly easy to shop in-person or on-line. You can shop by grade level, different essentials categories, and they’ve even included a teachers’ shop. I could just post their entire site and say I LOVE ALL THE THINGS but will be zooming in on some of my favorite back-to-school classroom essentials for this upcoming school year as well as what products I’m using to build my new self-contained classroom.

one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten

No matter how long you’ve been teaching or how many years you’ve spent in your classroom, the 10 items above are essential on a yearly basis (with the exception of number 10… an easy peasy label maker). Stocking up on items that support a variety of different instructional strategies at the beginning of the year is key. You can never have enough sticky notes for “our favorite no” and expo markers for spelling tic-tac-toe! As well as adding in some organizational bins/tools and culturally relevant learning products like Crayola’s new colors of the world pencil set.

As teachers we spend so much of our time and money on our students and our classrooms. We deserve to treat ourselves a little too! My favorite way to do that is by buying a new teacher planner every year.

happy planner | dress (size small, runs big) | ring set

Every teacher needs a great teacher planner. This is my first year using a happy planner and I’m pretty excited about it. I didn’t realize how many cute add-on kits they had… I can’t wait to get back in the groove of lesson planning and making it look pretty while I do so! Side note: this dress is SOOO COMFORTABLE and only $9.99 and comes in 7 different colors– SCORE!

cobalt caddy | half-notebooks | math money manipulatives | calculator | sticky notes | scissors | glue sticks | pencils

Last but not least, I’m working on stepping by organization game up…as well as my math instruction. I’ve decided to create specific bins for subject areas for my groups. Woohoo! Math groups can officially be crossed off the list. When subbing, I saw a lot of teachers in my building have these. They are perfectly organized for each subject area and specific to each table group. While we’re still in the pandemic, I figured limiting touching of supplies and contact with others as much as I can and being equally organized is a huge win-win!

Wooh! So many exciting things ahead. It’s been almost two years since I’ve had my own classroom… and I couldn’t be more excited. Can’t wait to continue to share this the journey of rebuilding and back-to-school shopping with you all.

with kindness | ashley

disclosure: this post was sponsored by walmart. As always, I only share and review the products I use and/or plan on using. Every thing is my honest opinion.