Getting ready for back to school

Wow, what on earth happened to July?!  I don’t know about you, but our summer flew by too quickly.  We did some light schooling over the summer like we usually do, as well as our share of camps, swim lessons, vacation, and as much fun as we can squeeze in to those few weeks.  Now, I am in full scale back to school mode.

For me, back to school involves cleaning my house top to bottom, cleaning out, organizing, catching up on all the tasks that I put off when we are busy with school.  For my family, school is our priority when we are on a school week, and it is easy to let those things back up.  I make sure I am well caught up before the beginning of a new school year.  The classroom will be scrubbed top to bottom.  Books will be moved to the appropriate shelves, and school supplies will be set out in each child’s space.

In our classroom, each child has their own shelf with the books they will need for the year.  I also have a shelf of the history books we will need for the year, and a shelf for science books.  We are heading into year 1 again, so I have books about the Ancient world and biology out and available. 

Each child also has a clipboard that opens and holds their school supplies.  In their clipboard, we put a pair of scissors, glue, crayons, colored pencils, pencils, and a small pencil sharpener.  Paper goes on top.  The clipboard gives us the flexibility of being able to grab 1 thing and have everything we need if we need to car-school or we want to head outside for school.  All the supplies they might need are kept there and no one has any excuse to go searching for anything.  And yes, we color code—binders, folders, scissors, etc match the color clipboard that child has. 

I am also writing out work plans for our 1^st 4 weeks of school and making all copies we will need for those weeks to put in each child’s binder.  This year I will have 10^th, 5^th, 3^rd, 1^st, K5, 3K, and a baby toddling around.  My 10^th grader will plan out his own weeks, but the 1^st, 3^rd, and 5^th graders will get work plans.  My kindergartener will be working with me some on phonics and math, and spending much of his time with Montessori materials.  And my preschooler will be learning how to operate in our classroom with the early Montessori lessons. 

The weekend before the first day of school, I will sit down with each of my older kids and go over their workplans, explaining anything new and making sure they understand what is expected of them this year.  I know that first day can be so hectic, and I need them as independent as possible while I get my preschooler working and get my 1^st grader doing more big kid work (and entertaining my 1 year old in the meantime-ha!). 

My biggest concerns for this year include my extraordinarily stubborn 3 year old and my 1^st grader.  She has a processing disorder and I have to be creative about how I introduce information to her.  All in all though, we are super excited and can’t wait to get started.  My 3^rd grader in particular is begging to start.  I love his enthusiasm!

We are filling next week with as much summer fun as we can, but we will still plan to swim and play after school each day through August. 

I hope your back to school plans are going well!  I have lots of posts in the works to answer questions you guys have had.  Be patient and I hope to get to all of those very soon!