Back to {home}school

I don’t know what I was thinking.  The local public school started last Monday.  Why I thought they started TODAY is beyond me.  I didn’t find out until last Sunday at church that the kids would be going back the next day {good thing, too, so I could avoid the embarrassment of sending my kids to play at a friend’s house thinking there was another week of summer left}.  I was planning to use that week as a planning week for THIS week.  Silly me!

As a result, we are getting started a week late.  However, other school districts in the area actually are starting today.  Phew!

Normally, we don’t take the summer off.  We school year round but this summer was different.  I started a blog… THIS blog and it took up much of my time.  I had no idea how to use Wordpress.  But by golly, I was going to figure it out because I paid for hosting!  I couldn’t just let it sit.  That would drive me nuts! 

Now that I’ve got that {somewhat} under control, I’m now trying to figure out how to apply the make-up to my blog.  You know, the beautification.  As you can see, I haven’t the faintest idea… it’s an education in itself!

But, it’s time to get back into a routine. 

This year is exciting for me because K is entering an age at which there seems to be several rites of passage as a homeschooler.  She is phasing out of Liberty Girls, taking this last semester and then moving on to YASA.  This will be the first year that she will be making her own Book of Centuries while the rest of us work on a family one.  And she will also be taking my ‘Homemaking 101’ course.

Did you laugh at that?  Me too! 

Me…. give a homemaking course?  That’s comedy! 

But we’ll start with simple things.  She really wants to learn how to cook so we’re going to work on that first.  When we get to the sewing course, she will actually be teaching me.  True story!  She may not know much about it yet but she can at least look at our machine and thread it.  I look at the diagram and still get a little confused.  I know how to sew a straight line though {once the machine is threaded}, does that count?  Go me!  Don’t ask me to thread the bobbin.  I don’t get that.  You can show me a hundred times but unless you are standing over my shoulder, walking me through it, I just don’t get it.

And in other homeschooling news, this year is also very different for us because this is the first year we’ve actually been able to buy books!  I’ve bought a few miscellaneous items here and there but the internet, workbooks, and the library have been our main sources of education.  We’ve just never been able to afford much else.  However, this year, in a surprise move by my biological dad {the one that thinks I still love NKOTB}… he offered to buy supplies. 

WOOHOO! 

I resisted at first because he handed me his debit card and told me to order what I needed.  No parameters, no guidelines, nothin’. 

Umm, hi!  My name is Brooke and I have a hard time spending money… period.  Especially with no guidelines.  Give me a number, a limit, somethin’!!  HELP!

He wouldn’t do it so, I ordered some things from Rainbow Resource and…. it hasn’t arrived yet.  DRAT!  But it should be here sometime this week.  Yay!

I may have been a bit nervous to give him the printed receipt.  It was $220 but I could have spent a whole lot more than that.  There are so many things that I want!  It was so hard to decide.

Luckily, he didn’t bat an eye.  And I am sooo grateful for the generosity!  I knew this would be the year we would really need to step it up and get more supplies.  K is getting older and needing more structure and content.  She is even more excited than I am.  Well, maybe not.  I am pretty darn excited for the books to get here! 

But even after ordering $220 in supplies, there is always more that could be useful.  So, in another surprise move, he took me to Costco, bought us a membership {I forgot how much I love it there and how much money I can save} and more supplies.  Workbooks, Bob books, a sketching set {because we can’t afford for K to take her art class this year… Anthony’s going to do a little ‘lesson’ with her every Tuesday}. 

AWESOME!

Then he took me to Barnes and Noble.  Children’s Dictionary, A Child’s Book of Poems, and a ‘learn Spanish’ set.

 

K is absolutely in love with words now.  That dictionary is definitely getting used.  Anytime she asks me what a certain word means, I tell her to go look it up.  She always says, “OH YEAH!  I forgot!”

Now, the only things I need to get are the basics… pencils, erasers, colored pencils, sketch books {for nature journals}, sharpeners, paper, rulers, etc.  The stuff that doesn’t cost a fortune!

I’m thinking tomorrow will have to be ‘picture day’ for us.  I’ll force them to let me do their hair and dress them.  They don’ t have anything new to wear but they can at least look less ragmuffin-ish, right?  Not that my kids are ragmuffins.  But sometimes they might look like it.  That darn wavy hair of A’s… and H’s.  Always looks messy but I promise we brush it!

And since we don’t have the books we ordered, this week will be very ‘light’.  I wish UPS would just hurry up with my package!  We’re going to have a real SCIENCE book!  I’m giddy, can you tell?

Well, how was your kids’ first day/week/month of school?