But Alexandra Levasseur did find argyle and plaid three-ring notebooks that she liked a lot. She considered asking Mom to buy her one to take to third grade at Lititz Elementary.

Spiral notebooks with covers that looked like antique floral wallpaper caught the eye of Chantel Musser. They definitely met the coolness factor of the Hempfield High School junior.

Zane Sensenig, an eighth-grader in Penn Manor School District, liked a zipped binder at Staples that has an extra elastic pocket on the outside where he could slide a textbook for safe keeping.

On the other hand, Logan Hickey, who is going into fifth grade at Reidenbaugh Elementary in Manheim Township, didn’t see anything he really wanted to buy. He had seen most of it before.

Seems the basics just don’t change. It’s the jazz factor and the brand new factor — who doesn’t want new stuff for the first day of school? — that draw kids in.

To find out what kind of jazz met with students’ approval, we took four students window shopping at Target and Staples.000, on Lincoln Highway. We asked them to tell us what was cool and what was not. Along the way, they dispensed a lot of advice about what students “have to have.”

Here’s what caught their eyes:

• Stickers, especially puffy stickers of fish, marine animals, jungle animals and all manner of whales, would work perfectly to decorate folders and binders, Logan and Alexandra agreed.
  
  The white tiger sticker from the jungle collection would look really good on a folder with foliage on it, Logan suggested.



• Remember the days of the washable markers? That’s so old school. Sharpies, permanent markers that will leave their mark where other markers leave none, are everywhere.
  
  Pastel sharpies, deep green and burgundy Sharpies, Sharpie highlighters, ultra-fine-tip Sharpies, retractable Sharpies that don’t require a cap. Mini Sharpies on key chains to fasten to a book bag.
  
  The only thing Sharpie doesn’t sell is an ink removal kit.
  
  Zane said Sharpies are almost essential for projects. He outlines all his poster artwork in a black Sharpie, but he thinks pastel colors would be good for projects too.
  
  And they’re not just for older kids. Logan said he used Sharpies when he was much younger to decorate a Ziploc bag that held his library books.



• A dry erase board, held by magnets, could go into a locker, said Chantel. Students could leave notes for a person who’s sharing a locker, or write notes to themselves.
  
  “I could actually see myself buying that,” she said.
  
  Logan and Alexandra reported that teachers are using dry erase boards in the classroom, reminiscent of the old individual chalkboards. Students can write answers to math problems or a word game on the “white board” and hold it up for the teacher to see.
  
  So far, they said, teachers are supplying them, but from the look of Target’s inventory, someone expects students to buy them.



• At Staples, magnetized mirrors for lockers had small containers attached to hold lipstick and hair supplies or anything else a teenager might deem important for school. Chantel wasn’t buying, but some other students probably would, she said.
  
  Additional shelving units are available to organize lockers, but neither Chantel nor Zane thought students would care.



• Alexandra recommended a clipboard. They aren’t required at her school, she said, but they are handy for group projects or work on the floor. She liked the brightly colored luminescent plastic ones that have rulers etched into the sides.



• Sticky notes of all shapes and sizes were necessary when one student was reading “George Washington’s Socks”: The teacher wanted him to mark the exciting parts with sticky notes and write about his reaction on the note.



• Everybody’s gotta have pencils, but pencils that are cushioned from top to bottom, not just as the gripping site, caught Logan and Alexandra’s attention. Last year one of Logan’s friends put a bunch of foam cushions on a pen to create the same effect, but this year, he could buy it already done. Mini mechanical pencils with big erasers infatuated Alexandra.
  
  Zane’s not buying into the fancy pencil temptation, though. Just give him a big pack of No. 2 yellow pencils and he’s good to go. As for colored pencils, everybody has to have a nice pack of them at home for projects, he said.
  
  Crayola is here to help. This year they are selling an erasable twistable colored pencils. When the tip gets dull, just twist it off and start with a new, fresh one.



• Spiral-bound notebooks are still created with kids’ interst in mind. Logan liked the Plankton Labs notebook cover, with Plankton, the dastardly cook on SpongeBob SquarePants.
  
  Alexandra liked the spiral-bound notebooks with the metallic 3-D spiraling circles. It matched the three-ring binder with the brilliant aqua flower she convinced her mother to buy for her.
  
  Though the students didn’t see it, Mead produces a spiral notebook called Zwipes. It comes with an erasable Magic Marker so students can write on the notebook cover and erase it the next day. See meadzwipes.com.



• Don’t even bother with the Wite-Out correction tape. It’s useless, Chantel and Zane agreed. The best Wite-Out is the correction pen, followed by the traditional correction fluid applied with a brush.



• As for backpacks, Alexandra goes for pastel and cute, with a pocket for a compact disc player. Logan prefers one with wheels. Zane wasn’t impressed with any he saw, though he has seen kids using monostrap sling bags with their favorite band imprinted on them. Try Hot Topic. Chantel prefers a messenger bag — they’re popular with “girls and Indie kids,” she explained, referring to independent music. “And Emo,” added Zane.
  
  Note for parents: New LiftPack Backpacks, endorsed by chiropractors, are sold at CVS and at LiftPack.com.

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