Homeschool Friday – Supplies

Warning: Cheesy Homeschooling-School-Supply-Addict/Mother Alert

I love school supplies.  I love their smell.  I like the smell of new books too, which is a related issue I think.  Last year I went a bit crazy buying school supplies because I wasn’t sure how much we would need, and I wanted to get them at a good price.  We used about 1/4 of what I bought last year.  You could say I went a little nuts.

Last year I was a rookie.  Not that I’m bathed in years of experience this year, but I at least learned how to not do a lot of things.  What I mean is that we did a lot of things, but now I know not to do them.  There are a million ideas of how to homeschool on the internet and I’m slowly figuring out what works for our family.

Last year I tried the work box system.  Not a fan.  I also got the kids their own school supplies and got some color coding system going so all of Silje’s things were pink and all of Davids things were blue, and I was planning on assigning colors to the younger kids as they got older as well.

This year I’m craving simplicity.  I don’t want color systems, or boxes with Velcro numbers on them so the kids know which box to work from next and in which order.  I found all these systems I had last year just more things to juggle, and I quickly let the system slip.  This year, I’m going for simple, and I’m so excited about it.

Instead of each kid having their own crayon box that they have to keep from getting ripped and make sure is full of crayons, we’re having a community spot for school supplies.  No more “yours” or “mine”…just “ours.”

I got this adorable little wire basket, and filled it with various sized canning jars from our cold room.  I have an enormous bucket of crayons that aren’t even half gone.  The last thing I need in this house is more crayons.  As I’m finding that things in bulk intimidate the kids and actually inhibit their work, I’m just keeping a handful of crayons available to them at a time.  The community pencils are sharpened and ready to grab, as well as the colored pencils.  I did fill it with LOTS of sharpened pencils because I found it is nice to have lots of those on hand.  Before, I’d work with Silje on her handwriting, her pencil would break, we’d go searching for the sharpener, we’d find it, we’d sharpen, and by the time she was ready to sit down again we had to find where we were, and then one of the little kids needed me.  My window was gone.  So this year, if a pencil breaks, grab another and keep going.  I can sharpen them whenever.

I did put a jar for our wipe board markers as we use the wipe board a lot for grammar.  However, I did not put any coloring markers in there.  In all honesty, I hate markers.  For some reason, markers end up being colored everywhere (like my hardwood floor, the walls, toddler’s knees…you name it.)  I’m always yelling at the kids to put the covers on, they never do it, the covers are found all over the house, the markers get dried out, I throw them away, the kids cry.  Besides that I read somewhere that crayons and colored pencils are better for writing skills as the child has to press down more to get the desired effect whereas with markers no matter if you press lightly or hard, you get the same color.

Enough reason for me.  Markers are out.  I don’t want that fight this year.  This year we’re going simple.

(FYI, Elias has already been timed to see how long it takes him to completely disorganize this basket.  If you’re wondering what the current record is, it’s 46 seconds.)  I like that this basket can easily move all the supplies out of reach in one swoop and when school is done for the day this basket can be removed to a high spot.  Last year I had a container with millions of crayons, a container with 15 glue sticks, a container with 5 scissors, etc.  It ended up taking up a lot of space and leaving a lot of clutter around all the time.

The rest of the school supplies have been moved out of the broken dresser in the living room that Knut and I pulled out of a dumpster in college.  I’m hoping to throw it away.  The papers and workbooks, etc. have been moved into half of the buffet thingy in the kitchen, as well as a newly cleared shelf in the back hallway closet.  (I recently switched my cleaning habits to the Norwex system and cleared an entire shelf of chemicals from my cleaning closet.  I know…I’ll have to blog about my new love sometime.  I’m busy, people.)  That is only their temporary spot as Knut said this winter his next project will be finishing the bookshelf/cabinet in the den.

The den now has one built in bookshelf with a cabinet underneath.  The bottom shelf has Silje’s school books from last year as she is now allowed to read them whenever she likes.  The next shelf up has all of her 2nd grade books that she is not allowed to read until she is assigned them.  As soon as we finish a book in school, she’s aloud to read it during her leisure time…which she does all. the. time.

The plan for this next winter is to do the same thing for the other side of the wall.  Knut is hoping to make another built in, and I’ve requested the same cupboards underneath to use as a nook for school supplies.  I asked him if he could put a lock on the new school supply cabinet because I like keeping some things out of reach for the kids.  He got really excited about installing fun hardware like that.

It seems counter-intuitive to hide away fun, creative things and keep them under lock and key from the kids.  It’s really helpful, though when I’m working with Silje on some lesson like phonics, and be able to pull out a toy that Elias never gets to play with except during school time.  He’s so excited that he gets special things too, and will sit and play with the “new” toy.  When Silje’s lesson is done, his “school” toy gets locked up and he has to settle for his “regular” toys again.  I need to keep some things special so that I can maintain focus of all the kids.  So I’m excited about a locked cabinet in our future.

The only thing we needed to replenish this year was some more pencils, and some more sharpeners as last year’s sharpeners broke.  I debated over a nice electric one, but in all reality I don’t know where I’d put a big one and the house is short on electrical sockets in good spots anyway.  So I bought some more cheapies that will probably need replacing again next fall.

Also, Silje needs a new backpack.  I’m waiting for them to go 75% off at Target after public schools start.  My mom asked me a good question, and that was, why does Silje need a backpack at homeschool?  The simple answer to that is: the library.  I attempt to take the kids to the library once a week and there is just no way I can carry all the books we bring home AND carry the baby AND hold Elias’ hand in the street AND have the load of the diaper bag.  So the kids each have a backpack that we fill to help spread “the load.”  Silje’s backpack is beyond it’s last leg.  Overall, our shopping list is pretty simple this year.

That makes me happy too.