Back To School: Happy 2016-17

You might not want to look at this if you are no where near ready for 2016-17 and are taking your sweet time off this summer to soak up some sun and sanity. Me, on the other hand? Well, it’s 100 degrees in the shade in Texasville, so what else is a girl to do but plan school, renovate her downstairs, and stay inside where it’s a cool 74 degrees Fahrenheit?

We decided to do a light week of getting back in the saddle here at the bee hive. Part of our back to school fun is a photo session… so my little punks and I grabbed the fake nerd glasses (not that we aren’t nerds), and headed up to the church where we could borrow their chalk board. I’m sure the senior citizens won’t mind that we borrowed their classroom.

Then, forgetting that we would pay for it later, we ate WHEAT McMuffins at McDonald’s – because that’s where my star students wanted to go.

Mama spent a few dollars she didn’t really have at Hobby Lobby, also. They had bulletin boards on sale half off. How can you pass that up? Their little learning nook is coming along fine (photos soon, I promise).

It’s so hot here, and the downstairs is still in much renovation disrepair (read: half my floor is tiled, and there are tools down there we are avoiding when daddy isn’t home)… so why not get started with this year’s school work so we can take off more time in the fall, at the holidays, and when we all have playing-hooky fever in the spring! You may be shaking your head at me, you lucky Yankees, but just wait until November, December, and April when I’m out fishing, camping, and doing other fun stuff in 70 degree weather. I may be crazy, but it’s an organized, purposeful kind of crazy that knows Texas seasons and homeschool mom burnout seasons well.

I’m also in the process of tweaking my daily schedule and creating new printables for this year’s record keeping. I’ll share those once I get them done. The new planner is looking fabulous. I went with the Apologia planner again this year because I love how they leave the grids up to you. A little washi tape and a P-touch helps me reclaim a few of their “mis-labeled” pages I would rather use for other things, and it is the most non-fuss answer to getting my homeschool mom organization on. I’m all about keeping it simple.

Tomorrow we are doing our weight, height, and hand-prints as we build a “Book of Me” this month. Today we talked about goals and got used to a full day of school. I can’t say there haven’t been a few kinks, but that’s to be expected when your summery brain is full of Minecraft potion recipes and your attention span isn’t longer than one episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants. Good thing for the boys, though… I’m much more able to ditch lesson plans and go with the mood in my older age. These second set of students are benefiting from mama using her first two students as guinea pigs. Sorry kids!

Now if I can just get a menu plan done for the week, I will be super-mom. Or at least I keep telling myself that.

My big guy is just weeks away from graduation. Still in denial… but also trying to figure out what in the world I’m going to say in front of all those people – how can you sum up awesome? I also am wondering if I won’t blow up the projector with all my photos. Having a photographer for a mom is sometimes dangerous.

I am amazed at how little time you really have with your kids. And how cute they are when they wear nerd glasses and bow ties. Scoop them up and play with them while you can.