Clinging to summer (not quite ready for school)

This year will be our sixth year of homeschooling and (ready or not) the first day is sneaking up. Usually by this point of summer I can sense that it's time to resume the school year routine. By August I'm typically excited to start planning lessons and I’m typically always glad to see the curriculum arrive on my doorstep.

But this year? I'm not quite ready.

Exhibit A of not being ready.

Funny how that works. How you think you know yourself backwards and forwards, but then a little shift and you are wondering what happened to that girl who was always so eager to go back to school. (If we are counting, this will be my twenty-sixth year of "Back to School" as either a student or a teacher.)

Last week I realized I needed to rip off the Band Aid, put on my big girl pants, and dive in—even if I'm not really ready for summer to end. Ready or not, the school year is upon us. And I've found that when I am not really in the mood to do something, what works best is to make a list of what needs to be done, schedule the time to do it, and then get it done.

Exhibit A of ripping the Band Aid off.

On the Back to School front this week was highly productive for someone who still has one eye (and two feet) in summer mode. I cleaned out the homeschool closet (which hadn't been touched since May). I carved out time to go to Target to get crayons, markers, backpacks, lunchboxes. I took all four kids shopping for clothes. I finalized our curriculum lists and placed our orders. I picked up the first massive box of books from our teacher at school, and put all of that ^^^ away.

Speaking of picking up curriculum, ordering curriculum, and school in general—a question I'm asked each year: "I thought you homeschooled? What do you mean "go to school"?

A little bit about our school program

For starters, our kids are enrolled in a local public charter school. In the state of California each homeschool student who enrolls with a charter school is entitled to a certain amount of curriculum and activity funds. Each family is assigned a California credentialed teacher who is the point of contact for ordering curriculum for each child, filing the required paperwork, collecting work samples to ensure everyone is on track, managing and coordinating standardized testing (if desired), answering any questions the parent has throughout the year, and conferencing with the student multiple times per year. Our school is set up a little differently (more on that in a minute!) so our teacher also helps us sign up for classes that are held on campus.

In short: this teacher helps make my role as a homeschool parent much easier. Over the years the teacher builds a great rapport with her families and students. We have had the same teacher for three years and we love her!

Homeschool

One of the benefits of our charter is that it is a true hybrid school. Each family can decide how many days they would like their child to spend on campus, allowing the parent to homeschool the remaining days. This year our kids will have three days where we all stay home for homeschool. For our homeschool days I’m using the same curriculum we used last year: Memoria Press. (This is actually newsworthy. I like to change things. But I liked this one a lot.)

On our homeschool days we will cover math, literature and poetry, grammar, Latin, science and ancient history (all things we've done in the past). This year we will also be adding a few subjects in seventh grade: American history and Greek. I have never learned Greek myself, so we will be learning it together!

Heading to school

We missed having classes at school last year due to the pandemic. But, like last year, our kids are all enrolled in the "full homeschool" program. Only this year they will be going to campus with hundreds of other kids for scheduled electives. Theo and Clara (first grade this year!) will be headed into school on Mondays for a full day of first grade (language arts, math, science and history) along with all the added fun things like recess, lunch, and classroom celebrations for holidays. They are so excited to start making new friends!

Here's a previous first day of school.

Lily and Eva (seventh and fifth grade this year, respectively) will have a full day of school on Mondays and half a day on Fridays. They are taking electives based on their interests and educational needs. More like high school or middle school where you need to change rooms between each class, each elective is taught by a credentialed teacher. Each class is filled with students who are also homeschooled the other three days of the week like our kids. There are hundreds of kids that attend and it has the flow of a typical school with lunch, recess, changing classrooms, and the car line.

Some of the fun elective classes they are taking are:

• Drama and Improv
• Garden Club
• Art
• Drawing
• Books and Cooks (a cooking class)

Some of the more focused elective classes they are taking are:

• Speech and Debate
• Budding Authors
• Writing
• Book Club
• ASB (student government)

Because of the restrictions last year, classes on campus never resumed for my older two girls. It's safe to say we are all really excited to have this hybrid piece back in place. Our first day of homeschool is August 23rd. One more week to soak up summer before we are back at it!

Back to school basics

Over the years, there are a few oils, supplements and products that I have found our family leans heavily on during the school year. This year, I would love to help your family head back to school on the right foot. I have five spots for people who would like to try a "Back to School Basics Box" and are willing to help me walk you through how to use each item in your box!

I'm happy to share from my stash and cover shipping to the US, I just ask that you request a box only if you are not already a Young Living member.

Want to claim a box? Yay! Just reply to this email. Boxes ship August 30th.

Snippets of my week

This airport (made of cereal boxes) has seen several expansions this week. Did you know you can buy airplanes that say Southwest or Delta?! So fun!

Back to school shopping date with my oldest.

Sunrise hike this weekend.

My partner on my morning walk.

Thanks for reading! Is anyone from your family headed back to school soon? How are you feeling about it? Are you still clinging to summer like me? I’d love to hear about it! Just hit reply if you’d like to respond. (When you hit reply, your message goes directly to my email. It’s a private conversation between just us.) I read all your messages and try to respond, but not always in a timely manner. Sorry! And if you enjoyed this email, you’d be doing me a favor by forwarding it to someone else who might like it.