As I said before, 90% of the time he's chaperoned and doesn't need a whistle or light in a classroom or recess. He should be safe on a school campus, (okay okay minus the rare sensationalized shooting). Its for when he is away from supervision that he needs these things. Or when he has to think on his own when he is ahead or trailing behind us or at a store.

I'll be honest, my son doesn't play outside without adult supervision. No friends in the neighborhood so that is a non-issue right now.

Can't say I see the reasoning behind giving a child a key chain light. I've seen six-year-olds do just fine with a 2D Maglite.

Point being, don't cutify your child's EDC to his or her detriment.

Did anybody mention a watch.
Watches are so much of our EDC that we never think of them and 5 is about the right age for a first watch.

I am not sure I would saddle a 5 year old with everything at once but load him up a piece or two at a time instead.
I would also let him choose as much of his stuff himself as I could.

The part about being traded for a cupcake at lunch nearly made me spit out my coffee lol. So true!

Ha! great point. I just happen to have extra photon lights and he liked playing with them and was familiar. I mean C'mon, you don't have about four laying about? Completely unrelated but quite aptly, I bought him a mini GI angle head flashlight for his pack yesterday. He loves using mine around the house but its much to big for him.

where's his pocket knife?

my son's school REQUIRED one.

Knives are not allowed at my son's school. and honestly, I do not think he is mature enough, or perhaps think HIS friends are mature enough for to be on him.

His reasoning skills are such that I don't think his 1st, 2nd, or even 3rd possible course of action would be to whip out a SAK and cut something. Possibly some scissors to cut something. I was going to get him a boy scout knife or SAK at Christmas or next summer.

Where the frick did you go to school? I had a SAK in high school and had it confiscated.

Everyone had a pocket knife when I was in school. And the teachers/principals didn't care much about it ... it was considered perfectly normal and non-threatening. But that was back in the 60's and 70's and things are quite different now. Now you get expelled for what was once considered normal behavior.

I wonder what they'd do these days about our "stink pens"? You take a metal ballpoint click pen. Remove the ink refill. Cram a strike-anywhere match up inside the top half, head facing downwards. Take a girl's bobby-pin and snip off one leg of it so it looks like a long skinny letter "J". Drop that into the bottom half of the pen so the "J" hook grabs the top of the spring inside and the end of the bobby-pin hangs out the end of the pen. Screw pen back together. To cause a stink, pull the bobby-pin end against the spring tension and release sharply. Discretely put the pen back into your pocket when done. It stinks worse with plastic pens, but they don't last as long as the metal ones. Especially fun with the substitute teachers who hadn't learned about these things yet!

I was way out in the hills of WV in school in the 80's so we still carried them, were a little behind the times. Shop teacher would pull a rifle our from under his truck seat and shoot groundhogs in the football field.