School Preparation

It is that time of year again...Back to School...and again I have fallen a bit behind schedule but it was worth it.

My goal to begin school was August 1st but with so much that had happened this summer and most of it in June/July I have slowly pushed our start date back to August 8th. Oh I guess if this is your first time reading it may help to know that we homeschool.

The good news is that it has not taken me by surprise like so many other times, no I have been working on things for a while now. I ordered our material in May, tried to get the bathrooms finished up in June (we are SO close), started a routine including cleaning in July, and organized/purged our classroom in August. So organizing may have started in July but I finished today and hung our bulletin board boarder.

One of the reasons I fell behind wasn't the sickness, vacation, or even the collapsed sewer line (yep you read right). It was that my boys went to spend 4 days with my parents unexpectedly one of the last weeks in July. It was the weekend I had planned to do some of the fun stuff of picking out new outfits and items we may need for school. Even though we homeschool it doesn't mean that we can't join in the fun of back to school shopping. For us we get to wait until things go on sale but there are a few things like decorations that help get them excited to start.

The time away was good for both them and us. It has been a couple years since my mom had them for a couple nights but I was a counselor at camp only about 30 minutes away, otherwise it had been since before my youngest was born. I missed them like crazy but we are planning to do this more often so they can spend time with family.

My husband and I tried to make the most of it trying to come up with places we wouldn't normally go with the boys or at least places that would be good to try before taking them. It was hard coming up with ideas, but again we only had an hour between the time I mentioned the idea to my mom and her picking them up. They live 2 hours away and she was in town helping a friend so it just worked out perfectly. When my husband was working or studying I spent my time watching movies and doing absolutely nothing...again playing a part in the delay in school. :)

Now we are close to my next goal date and I have just found out I am babysitting the first 3 days but I plan on having activities for the little girl to do and just hoping the baby sleeps through the morning. He really is a good baby so I think we should be fine.

But my dilemma comes back to we haven't decorated or planned anything special to mark the first day of school. Every year I have these grand ideas in my head, pinned to pinterest, maybe even supplies bought but so far this year I come up blank. Looks like it may be a surprise to all of us.

This year I have done something ahead of time, that I haven't done since my oldest started Kindergarten...read ahead and planned. Usually I wait until the last minute to put my teacher books together and then usually I do about 4 weeks at a time. Last night I copied and assembled 12 weeks until the ink ran low and I completely ran out of paper. I actually had to go find 5 pieces to finish but we made it. This also caused me some anxiety because 3rd grade seems to be so different than the last 3 years. Maybe once we start it won't be so bad but it does feel a little overwhelming.

Let's see what happens in the next 5 days...