We are back to this interesting, not new at all topic - Kids are kids! If you have seen the Lost & Found section at school, you would agree with me that it’s like a treasure hunt when you have to look through it. You’ll be surprised at the items that kids would lose on a daily basis, yet not really that surprise after all. In a research done by the Daily Mail in the UK, children lose an average of 7 items every month and an average of 1,000 items during their school life.
Take a guess now and see if the items you have in mind made it to any of our top 10 commonly lost items for most seen at School’s Lost and Found.
Source: https://attachatag.com/insights/blog/a-parents-guide-to-the-true-cost-of-school-uniform
#10 Coats/Jackets
When you first heard from your kid that he/she has lost their jacket at school, your first reaction would probably be: how on earth would you lose such a big item? Kids are kids! They can misplace anything anywhere. Luckily, it’s easier to locate back the item as it’s relatively large. However, it’s still safest to put clothing labels on them, so that it won’t be mixed up with the exact same lost by another kid.
#9 Lunch boxes
I do question my kids if they hid the lunch box on purpose because they dislike the food I prepared. It’s understandable that kids rush out to play with their friends after having lunch and the lunch box just mysteriously gone missing.
#8 Sunglasses
This shouldn’t be found in the school’s Lost & Found because children shouldn’t bring them to school. Interestingly, we do have some cool kids at school but small items like sunglasses are very easily lost.
#7 Shoes/Boots
Especially in winter time, kids have to change to regular shoes from their winter boots at school, either one would be easily misplaced among the “ocean” of shoes in the school hall. I have seen parents asking in Facebook groups if other parents have taken his/her kid’s shoes by accident in the swimming pool. Younger kids tend to kick off their shoes and run into the classrooms, so shoe labels are really to the rescue.
#6 Hat and Scarf
Either cap, winter hats, and scarfs are very commonly seen items at Lost & Found anywhere, not just school. It seems to be a habit for all kids to take them off once they go indoors and just throw them on the floor. Why can’t they have a habit of putting it on the clothing rack instead?
#5 Water Bottle
Water bottle is an everyday item that kids use, even during weekends to sport classes, dining out and more. It’s very easy to misplace the water bottle. Another reason is that water bottles are easily mixed up between friends and classmates (Kids always love the same cartoon characters), so labelling them are very important to prevent your kids drinking from the wrong bottles.
#4 Socks
Rather the spare pair of socks or the one they changed for any possible reasons, you’ll find a lot of single sock at the School’s Lost & Found. That’s why parents should buy a pack of same style socks and can still have a pair left if he/she has lost most of them.
#3 Cutlery
Same idea as lunch boxes, but it’s even worse than lunch boxes because it’s much smaller. Kids may still remember to put the lunch box in their bag because it’s large enough but they would then forget about the forks and spoons.
#2 Stationary
Pens, rulers, erasers, and any stationary you can think of are very common in Lost & Found at school. Sometimes I wonder if the school Lost & Found area would have more stationary than the stocks selling at Wal-mart.
#1 Gloves!
The winner goes to Gloves! As LabelBubble is located in Canada (East Coast), we have around 8 months of winter here. Even with the mitten clips, the chances of losing one, not both of the gloves are still extremely high. As an adult myself, I have just lost one of my gloves last month as well, so we can’t blame the kids. Probably, I should order myself a set of name labels too. :)
There are a few ways that parents do to make sure our kids have enough of the items to go through one semester - buying a few of the same item, labelling all the items, and possibly trying your luck through the lost & found. There are ways to help your kids stop losing their stuff and we’ll have an article talking about it in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!