This week, I am excited to introduce a guest blogger who is going to give us some great tips on making it back to school in one piece. Wendy also has 7 munchkins with the added excitement of a yours, mine and ours type situation. And she not only has kids in public school, but is also sending kids back to homeschool!
Just the thought of that makes my head spin a little!
Handling the School Morning Crazies
The last couple weeks have had me circling my to do list like a lion circling its prey. Why you ask? Because my to do list no longer says easy stuff like go grocery shopping, plant seeds, work on organizing baby’s room. Nope my to do list now says things like, register the youngest bonus daughter for public school, start scheduling the homeschool day, and work on ordering curriculum.
Yup that’s right not only are we a blended family in the traditional sense, for the last two years we have been a blended family when it come to school as well. In the past, two have gone to public while 4 have homeschooled. This year 1 will go to public and 5 will homeschool.
I’ve heard it a lot, ”It must be hard to homeschool.” No, the schooling part is not actually the hard part, that is the part I love. It is the getting everyone going in the morning so we can all start our schools that gets maddening around here. My homeschoolers will also be going to enrichment classes two days a week as well which puts me into mommy taxi driver mode. Luckily it is all through the same school so that cuts down on some of the craziness.
Yup back to school time is enough to send even the sanest of mommy’s straight to the loony bin for a much needed vacation.
But I am here to tell you it CAN be done without you losing your sanity!
In our household we have already started getting up at the time we would for a normal school day. (6:30 for us cough cough because I am one of those psychotic morning people.) We are slowly getting back into the routine of wake up, dress, morning chores, breakfast, and then we either work on whatever we’re doing for the day or some small review work for the kids. I find the more consistency I keep in the mornings with the kids the better off they are for when fall hits. Besides, they’re kids, getting up on a schedule is not necessarily a bad thing for them.
To cut back even more on the stress of going back to school I have decided that this year the public school girl will do hot lunch. Adding one more thing to our already hectic mornings for school, was not something I was looking forward to. The other 5 will have to take lunches twice a week, so twice a week in the evenings they will be getting together and making their own lunches. Not only is it taking the stress off of me, it is teaching them how to plan ahead and to get themselves ready, for when they are older and in college or have jobs.
We tried the whole picking your clothes out for school the night before thing, But let’s face it, by the time bedtimes rolls around for kids, after a busy day, I am just as tired as they are. So in the morning before they start their chores I quickly look over their outfit. If it doesn’t match….back to their bedrooms they go till they can match.
Which brings me to the whole morning school rush thing. You know, the time of morning when you can’t seem to find that other tennis shoe, somebody forgot it was share day, the lesson plan has gone missing, and your coffee pot just will NOT stay full! Then you have the one dawdler who, no matter if you wake up at 6:30 or 4:30 still is not ready for school till the bus is pulling up. Which tends to send you into a tizzy of hollering to hurry up over and over and over again?
Listen to me, I know you may not like my answer, let them miss the bus. Yup don’t bend the rules and let them eat first, before chores if that’s not how they normally do things. Make them get ready as normal (providing you yourself have not woken up late and you’re on your normal school schedule). If they decide to drag their feet and miss the bus, take it as another learning opportunity. If you live close enough to the school tell them they have to walk now. Follow them in the car and when they go into the office to get their late slip let THEM tell the office why they are late. If you have to drive them because you live too far from school let them know they will be doing an extra chore or paying you back for the gas spent. If you have a reluctant homeschooler who does not want to start the day, you can do the same thing. Make them do something extra around the house that is fair trade for them making you wait on them to start lessons.
By the time the end of your first month back to school rolls around you will be in full swing of normalcy….or at least what looks like normalcy to others. You will quickly find what needs to be tweaked and what can stay the same. Your kids will know exactly how the flow of the morning should look, and you may even find time to sneak in that extra cup of coffee and sit back and check your facebook. Well, unless you have a toddler…. Then you’re probably not sitting down for the next two years.
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Ah, toddlers. They complicate everything! So there you have it! That’s how a homeschooling, public schooling Mom of 7 does it! Make sure you stop by Wendy’s little piece of the internet and say hello!
What are your back to school tips? Do you homeschool, or have kids in public school?
