When you and your student are packing up to head to Missouri State for move-in weekend, remember these 10 last minute items:

1. Watertight Packable Rain Jacket and Rain Boots

For years my students ran from the school bus or car into their middle school and high school and never once wore a rain jacket. At some point, your student will need to walk across campus in a deluge. Make sure they are prepared.

2. Digital Thermometer

Since they were babies, we have functioned as a human thermometer laying our hand on a hot forehead; now it is time for a real one. Freshmen get sick. A lot. And when your student calls you and says they feel hot, it is nice to know if we are talking 99.1 or 101.5. To a parent, those numbers mean everything.

3. Color Catcher Dye Trapping Sheets

Yes, we have coached our kids on why they have to wash whites and darks separately but sometimes that just won’t work.  With these ingenious sheets, they will never have to worry about that red t-shirt making all their white t-shirts pink.

4. 6 Foot phone charging cord

Students want their phones by their beds and, as they use them for all communication and as an alarm clock, it has become a necessity. An extra long charging cord means that the phone can be safely set on a bedside table (instead of being left to charge on the floor!) or reach a top bunk.

5. Health insurance card information.

When they get sick this is one of the first questions you will get. I had my students take a picture of our cards to keep in their phones so that they have the information when they need it.

6. Sewing Kit 

Your teen may have not any idea how to sew, but that is what YouTube is for. When they pop that first button, it’s nice to be able to grab a needle and thread and put it right. Full disclosure: my kids wait and bring things home, but I live in hope.

7. Games.

One of my students showed up with chess and suddenly there was a crowd. Board games, card games, frisbee and, yes, video games are all great ice breakers at the beginning of the school year.

8. Scissors

It is amazing how often we use them and how few students have them at school.

9. Water Bottle

Students walk all day on campus, from class to dorm to dining hall to gym, and more. With their own bottles, they can fill up at stations designed for bottles while saving money and minimizing plastic waste, too.

10. Command Strips

Blank residence hall walls are dreary. Bring a banner, a poster, or pictures of the family dog, any of which can go up in an instant with command strips.

11. Something whimsical

A small gift, something from the heart, that will make your child smile after you have given them that last hug goodbye and you are on your way back home.

If you forget some of these things, have your student check the Missouri State Bookstore which has most everything your student will need.

(reprinted from www.brileycollegeconsulting.com, with Missouri State info added)