Share-A-Cart - Helping Teachers #ClearTheList

Summer is finally here! Students are heading out of schools and looking out to months of hot weather, no impending tests or homework, and what feels to many like endless time off to hang out with their friends. Right now, teachers all around the country are excited too, but many are getting hyped up for some slightly different reasons. Any and every educational professional can enjoy the glorious appeal of summer, but now that the spring semester is officially wrapped up, it is time to start preparing for the next school semester of 2022! A huge part of this, beyond the lesson planning and building curriculums, is classroom preparation. So right now, teachers around the country are prepping long lists of school supplies and materials for their classrooms.

Classroom decoration is super important, because it’s the start of a terrific approach to get students enthused about learning. After all, classroom management tactics begin with the environment in which they are implemented. When students' surroundings are secure and joyful, it is much simpler for them to get truly involved in what they are studying. By displaying instructional resources in color in a classroom, teachers promote feelings of joy, warmth, and safety. This visual stimulus is extremely beneficial to their efforts to develop a cooperative learning atmosphere.

Classroom supplies are just as important. Teachers look out for students to make sure that no one gets left behind. Whether it’s a student not having the proper tools to take a test once in a while (who hasn’t had a day where they forget their pencil case at home), or students being unable to purchase certain supplies. Many teachers put that responsibility on themselves, which they should be proud of, but it can also be a huge financial burden on them. It’s important that every student has access to the supplies they need, but it’s also important that we try and support those educational professionals who look out for them.

Most districts in the United States require that teachers pay for the majority of their classroom supplies out of their own paycheck. In 2021, the educational nonprofit adoptaclassroom.org found that 90% of teachers buy their own classroom supplies. They also found that on average, teachers spend $750 on their classroom supplies, and 30% of teachers even paid over a thousand dollars! Classroom supplies like pencils, erasers, and pens aren’t cheap (especially with how often students tend to lose them), but supplies like classroom posters or anything for arts and crafts activities can really break the bank.

Here’s the good news: the Clear the List movement helps support teachers by encouraging people to donate items from teachers’ shopping lists!

Teachers have such a powerful impact on our students, and that’s why it’s so important we support them with the Clear the List movement. It can help take the strain off teachers, and allow them to focus on getting as much as possible of what they need for their classes.

Share-A-Cart is a great extension to make clearing the list for teachers a little easier. If you’re a teacher or educational professional trying to share items from a website without a wishlist function, or you are sending your school supplies list to local supporters of education, then extensions like Share-A-Cart (share-a-cart.com/plugins) can help you! All you have to do is download the extension, create a normal cart with your recommended supplies on a retailer’s website, and Share-A-Cart will generate a link to that cart. Anyone can then use the link to easily, directly transfer those items to their own cart to purchase them! If they want to buy alternatives to the items on your list, they can do so easily since they’ll know exactly what type of items you’re requesting. (This is also great when sending out lists to parents of what school supplies, like textbooks, they need to buy.) To find the full, detailed instructions on how to make a Share-A-Cart list, scroll below!

Share-A-Cart is also looking to help out as many teachers as they can this year and support the #CleartheList movement! If you use Share-A-Cart to make your #CleartheList list, you may even find it gets cleared by Share-A-Cart! If you’re a teacher who uses the Share-A-Cart extension to make your school supplies wishlist, you can also tag them on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram with your list to boost your chances of that.

Are you a teacher or an educational professional looking to make a school supplies list? Follow these steps to make your classroom wish list using Share-A-Cart: Head over to the Share-A-Cart Website and select the browser you’re downloading a plugin for. share-a-cart.com/plugins Once you have downloaded the Share-A-Cart plugin, choose your retailer! Share-A-Cart supports hundreds of retailers, from Staples to Amazon to Walmart.

To create your list, simply start adding the items you need for your classroom to your cart. Once you are finished, click the “Create Cart ID” button on the extension. This will generate a five digit alphanumeric code for your cart. Then, click “Copy Cart Link”! This will give you a short link to your cart, that you can publish anywhere! You can also edit the title for your Share-A-Cart list, in case you have multiple lists to share.

You can let people alter your list, or you can make sure that no one but you can change it. Once you get your cart link, it should look like this: share-a-cart.com/get/XXXXX. To make sure no one else can edit it, change “get” to make, and place #password at the end of the URL before loading the page. The result is that is should look like share-a-cart.com/make/XXXXX#password. Then, simply scroll to the bottom of the page and place a password. You should see a bright blue “Save List” button on the top of the list, and you can click it to ensure your list is password protected. This means that no one can change your list but you! Let’s help support teachers with the Clear The List movement!

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