School supply lists have gotten pretty strict in recent years. Students are often only allowed to bring the basic school supplies, and some teachers specify the brands they'll accept in their classrooms. Understandably, schools don't want to deal with items getting stolen or being too distracting, but it's sad that kids today don't get to have all the fun we had in the '90s.
Back-to-school shopping was an exciting time in the '90s, not just for new clothes, but also for the school supplies aisle. So many of us can trace our obsession with new notebooks, pens, and pencils back to those shopping trips as kids. The bright colors and fun gimmicks had us clamoring for the school supplies in a way that kids today will never understand.
These are the 10 school supplies that every kid wanted in the '90s:
Trapper Keeper
Even the most minimalist millennial was once in love with Lisa Frank products. These notebooks, folders, binders, and more were covered with bright and loud designs. Rainbow, tie-dye, iridescent, and holographic patterns and colors combined with pictures of cute animals made Lisa Frank school supplies all the rage. Our younger selves would be appalled by all the "millennial gray" of the modern era and would want to rectify that with a giant Lisa Frank sticker collage.
Mead Five Star Notebooks
When it came to pencil boxes, SpaceMaker was the best. The durable, hard plastic protected your pencils and crayons from breaking when they were tossed into your backpack or desk. They came in all different colors and had a handy indent in the lid, which was perfect for making bookmarks out of glue (if you know, you know). The bumps on the top also provided a tactile fidget toy for those of us who really could have used a fidget cube back in the day.
Yikes! Pencils
Another product of the '90s that prioritized form over function was push-up pencils. They were cute and fun to use—until you lost one of the pencil pieces. Then, they became frustratingly useless. It was also a problem if you lost the cap, since it held the eraser. But many '90s kids also collected specially shaped erasers, so you could always use one of those. They just tended not to work well. Still, these push-up pencils looked great in your pencil box.