Back to School Must-Haves

Can you believe it? The new school year is just around the corner (yippie!) but before you can really take a bit a breather, you've got to do the back to school shopping thing. To give you some help, here are our picks for some hot essentials:

Designed for 3 to 7 year olds, Fleurville's Lunch Pak ($35) is the perfect size for lunch and a small project. The pack features insulation to keep food & drinks cold (or warm) and has pockets for other essentials.

Its hard enough for the kids to remember homework assignments never mind locker combinations. Staples WordLock ($5.98) is a combination lock that uses words instead of numbers. Simple to use, the WordLocks five tumblers allow for more than 100,000 possible letter combinations and has a hardened shackle for extra security.

Keep apples and peanut butter or carrots and ranch dressing neat with The Container Store's Snack & Dip ($3.99).

And, Thermos' unbreakable FUNtainer Food Jars and Beverage Bottles ($19) feature cool designs for boys and girls and maximum temperature retention.

Each year, more than 30 million students use Elmer's Glue, so why not mix it up this year with some fun variations like Galactic Glue ($5) with glitter or colored Washable glue?

Franklin Covey's Premier Elementary School Agenda ($8.95) is geared to ages 6-12 and encourages students to start each week by setting personal learning and caring goals and to reflect on these at the end of the week. Includes SchoolTalk and Family Activity Corner to keep parents involved in their child's education.