School starts Tuesday!

I’ve always been super excited about school starting every year. The smell of the air, getting some new clothes, sharpening all your new pencils, pulling out your trusty dusty old backpack that has seen too much. I especially loved getting a big pile of super cheap seventy page spiral notebooks because that’s what I would do all my writing in. I hated school and would stay home as much as I could but I’ve always loved the beginning of every new year.

Now I’m a mom with a school aged-kid and we do school at home and it’s still super exciting. I spent the weekend organizing and getting prepared for the school year. I rearranged my dining room so we have space for our book shelf and calendars, and a little reading nook and our dining room table. Last year we mostly did school on the living room floor, but now that my girls are wanting to do preschool stuff I figured it might be nice to have them all at the table. I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes.

Next, I printed out some chore charts. I like these ones because it has pretty self explanatory pictures and the tasks are things that make my life so much easier when delegated to the kids. I give them 25 cents per task done completely. This time I’m going to have them collect stickers for the whole month and then give them a payout instead of weekly. We’ll see what works best. I usually start them on their chores an hour before bed and they’re happy to do it. My son gets the concept of money so he’ll pick out what he wants. I will give the girls a choice of things equaling the amount they’ve collected, or the option to pool their earnings for something they can share (like a dollhouse or game).

I also put up a list of things that need to be done before having screen time every day. One of those is 20 minutes of reading or creative play. I’m hoping that he will be so into whatever he’s doing that he’ll want to keep on instead of playing video games or YouTube videos. That’s my dream. To have a house full of people who love to drink coffee and quietly read books on a Sunday afternoon. If they don’t like coffee, tea is okay, and comic books are totally fine too. And maybe we can take little breaks every 45 minutes or so to discuss what we’ve read…

But back to my organizing.

I started preschool at home with the girls a little before summer vacation started last year because they were begging to do school with their brother. I decided to do a letter of the week type curriculum. So we did vowels first, starting with A and also the number one and a shape. We do painting and crafts and printouts. I try to pick out an animal and a food or plant or something, and something else that goes into the social studies/science area; for example, anger might be something for A and then we study that what makes us angry or what to do to stop being angry or whatever. We did the vowels and then stopped to enjoy boring, nothing, summer days. But they’ve been begging me for “preschool stories” so I gathered stuff up for the letter B and the number 6, rectangles and I think we will do the Eric Carle bear books and activities for the social studies/science part. Maybe also make a bird feeder? They love it, otherwise we’d just chill out and watch Nick Jr. and hope for the best like we did with my son. But every kid is different and they love being busy.

Overall I’m feeling pretty good and prepared. When I was younger my mom always told me I was disorganized and lazy and for the longest time I thought I was, until just a few years ago actually. But what I figured out is that we are just different kind of organizers. I have to have lists and plans and charts to help me stay organized. I have to write things on a calendar and have chore charts and a cleaning schedule otherwise I lose focus. I never knew I needed tools to help me when I was younger so my focus was always muddled and I felt like I couldn’t do anything. It probably looked like I was lazy but really I was just drowning in too much stuff without a plan. Every time I am able to organize and prepare my life I feel this huge happiness. When I see my dry erase calendars and charts and shelves with things sorted it feels like a victory.

I have a hundred pages left of my second manuscript to edit before applying for a copyright. I’m going to start figuring out what my next project will be in the coming weeks. Otherwise I’m just riding out the rest of summer and figuring things out little by little. Have a great week and thank you for reading.