Well, I’ve been saying all summer that I wouldn’t even think about school things until August 1st. I know some moms can do school work all summer, printing things out, getting schedules set, but I can’t. I need my summer break. I need a good 2 months of not thinking of school at all. So every June & July I don’t do anything related to homeschooling. Then in August I get everything put together that I need to. And this year was no different. Even though our starting time has changed, and the kids kept asking when we will start, I would answer, “I don’t know, it’s not August yet. We’ll find out then.” It became a running joke in our family. And let me say that I do get all our curriculum ordered by March of each year (we use our tax return). And I always do a rough sketch of when we need to start school again, and what things I need printed out. I get that done the last few weeks of school. That helps me take the summer off and relax, because I know a big portion is already done.
But alas it’s August 2nd, and I’ve been thinking and working on school things for 2 days now. I do know when we are starting, next week, anytime after Sunday. As usual it all depends on Paul’s day off. I wasn’t planning on starting until after the 15th, but Paul is taking his first vacation in over 2 years at the end of August. In total he’ll have 9 days off, which for us is 2 weeks. So we will be stating next week, doing school for 2 weeks, then we’ll be off August 21st through September 4th. Yes, the kids and I get a few extra days, but it was just easier this way then doing one day of school, being off 9 days, then trying to finish 3 days of school. The kids and I are excited. When we start school, we just start. I rarely ease into things. About the only thing we ease into is making sure they realize they won’t be sleeping in much longer. Again, with 2 teenage children that we’ve been homeshooling for going on 10 years, things flow pretty smooth.
Ok I have to stop here a second and write how shocked I am that I just wrote we are going into our 10th year of homeschooling!!! I didn’t realize we had been homeschooling that long. The kids and I were just reminiscing about when we started, how we started and the fun we’ve had through the years. Plus, it’s a complete shocker to think we are considered veterans, and that people would come to us for advice. Not that I consider us veterans or with any real good advice. But when I started, when I knew someone that was homeschooling for almost 10 years, I would flock to them, get advice, see what they did. It’s weird to think about that. But fun to think too, that we’ve made it through these going on 10 years and the kids are doing great. It’s a blessing to look back and see.
So now I need to work on the kids schedules. I’ll get them written out later today. Then on Thursday Paul and I will take the kids out to our annual “Back To School Lunch”. I print out the schedules, we go to a restaurant and we give the kids the schedules, talk about what we expect of them and how the year should go then we have lunch. It’s a fun way to start school again. We don’t really do back to school shopping, though we did pick up some new folders & spiral notebooks today. So this is a way to try and help the kids get excited about school. I have one child who absolutely loves it when it’s time for school and I have one who absolutely hates it. 🙂 But the back to school lunch is always a fun thing to do and look forward to.
Guess if I really want to have the schedules done before our lunch on Thursday I better get working on them. No time to work on them Wednesday, my mom is coming out for the day. We are all excited about that. I love it when she visits. So how about you, have you started school preparations yet? Will you be starting in August or waiting until September, or did you already start?
6 thoughts on “Getting ready to start school”
Comments are closed.