School Supplies - U.S. Culture & Vocabulary- Back-to-School Shopping

Let's start with a short quiz.

I tricked you.

There should be a fourth answer choice:

All of the above.

The students generally provide the most.

But teachers often spend their own money on different classroom supplies.

And the school does provide some supplies.

Some schools even supply tablets.

Well, you'll have to listen and find out.

The middle or end of August is when we do our back-to-school shopping.

Department stores, pharmacies, and office supply stores

compete for customers.

They have different sales to attract us.

And they make a lot of money

as we all rush around buying new clothes and various school supplies.

Online at this time of year,

you can also hear from high school students and college students.

They'll show you what they've bought for the new school year.

And they can tell you what's trending.

What's cool and what's not.

I can give you the parent's perspective.

I have a friend with a son,

and he's entering the sixth grade.

She spent about $100 (USD) on school supplies alone.

You can imagine how much I spent

because I have two children.

Would you like to know what's on a typical school supply list?

Maybe you're in the U.S.

Maybe you're living outside of the U.S.

But if you grew up in another country,

you may be curious about the similarities and differences.

Now, parents receive the school supply list

different ways.

They may receive a letter in the mail.

They may get an email.

Or, like me, you have to go to the school website

and look at the list of supplies.

The list varies from school to school,

from grade to grade,

and even from teacher to teacher.

There are items we have to buy as a classroom contribution,

such as boxes of tissues.

And I wonder sometimes about the amount.

Some teachers ask for one. Other teachers ask for two.

And if there's about 20 children in a classroom,

that's 20 to 40 boxes of tissues for the school year.

That's a lot of tissues.

There are also items that we have to buy for our children,

like pencils and pens.

Well, let me go through their bags,

and I'll show you what I had to buy.

If you hear about "school supplies,"

you probably think of pencils and paper.

Well, that's in here.

But believe me -- there's a whole lot more.

Can I show your school supplies?

Sure. - Okay.

Well, first of all, the classroom contributions.

Some teachers ask for one.

Some teachers ask for two.

Why do you guys need disinfecting wipes at school?

To clean our desks.

To clean your desks.

Like you clean them every day?

I do.

I clean them once a week.

Well, imagine. There are about 20 kids in a classroom,

so that's about 20 to 40 bottles of disinfecting wipes.

And along with disinfecting wipes,

many teachers ask for...

hand sanitizer.

Again, 20 or more bottles of hand sanitizer

in a classroom for the school year.

That's a lot of sanitizer, guys.

Yeah.

It makes me think of the word "germaphobe."

I think in the U.S. we have a lot of germaphobes.

Do you know what a germaphobe is?

Someone who doesn't like to be dirty.

Well, they're afraid of germs.

But don't you guys wash your hands with soap and water at school?

Yeah.

But I guess this is for the classroom, where you don't have a sink.

Classrooms love to have sanitizer in the U.S.

Pencils, of course, are there.

And every student usually has a...

pencil box or pencil case.

This is yours, huh?

But in addition to our No. 2 pencils,

We also have colored pencils.

What else do we have in here?

Pens.

They ask for three pens, five pens...

Ruler..or we say "straightedge."

Erasers that can be shaped into cool stuff.

Such as a video game controller.

"Cool erasers" are not on the list,

but if they say an eraser, I'll put in

one very functional eraser

and then I'll let him have a couple cool erasers.

Because kids like to have some cool stuff.

No, I don't.

And sticky notes.

Some teachers like to have sticky notes.

Scissors.

Pencil sharpener.

And other things that they put in there.

Okay. Now let me show you...

This is my notebook.

This is what's called a spiral notebook.

But for some reason, my children are only to have

these composition notebooks.

They call them marble books or marble notebooks because of the pattern.

So my daughter needs three.

My son only needs one.

She also needs folders.

And we call these...

Binders?

No, these are the pocket folders.

And they are folders with two pockets.

They can be known as two-pocket folders.

Yeah. Two-pocket folder.

And they ask the parents to label everything in advance.

We've labeled everything.

My son doesn't have folders.

He's supposed to have

four or five binders.

These three-ring binders.

If you push that, you can put the papers through it.

Yeah. What kind of paper?

Um, notebook paper.

Well, notebook paper...or actually we call it

looseleaf paper. (loose leaf/ loose-leaf)

This is a pack of 100 sheets.

On his list I was told to buy

three packets of looseleaf paper.

That's 300, people.

See? I labeled it, and unfortunately,

the letters are already starting to come off.

Oh, so for every binder

you also need these (tab) dividers

to divide the paper up.

And...oh goodness.

This is falling apart already.

Because I had to label everything.

What do we have here, guys?

Highlighters.

I better do a better job of packing the highlighters.

These, everyone, are a type of marker.

for highlighting.

Oh, here's something interesting.

Teachers these days love...

glue sticks.

Although some are more traditional

and ask for just a bottle of glue.

You have a bottle of blue.

And you have like 10 glue sticks.

I know.

That's a lot of glue sticks.

But they just want to make sure you have enough

to last you through the whole year

because it's very easy to lose your school supplies.

True. And now this is on your list.

This is on your list.

Dry erase markers and an eraser.

So I guess in some classrooms they pass out

small whiteboards to the children sometimes,

so she needs a packet of dry erase markers.

Now that you've seen all the school supplies,

here's one last question.

And I won't give you answer choices

because I think you already know the word.

Many children also take a lunch to school

as well as a snack,

So they need a lunch bag or a lunch box.

If a family is lucky, they can use the ones from last year.

Otherwise, these are additional expenses.

That's all for now.

Thanks for watching and...

Happy studies!

Are you guys really ready to go back to school?

No.