In my dreams, we live out in the country. Way out. We have land with room for cows and horses and speckled chickens that lay Easter colored eggs. I grow a giant garden and fill our pantry shelves with a rainbow of canned fruits and vegetables. My kids spend their time tending the animals and helping me in the vast garden, exploring the hills and creek, soaking up the glory of nature and the simple life.
In fact, our life is much more average. We live in the suburbs. We have a dog. If we want more nature than our small patch of backyard has to offer, we have to get in the car to go there. Our life feels a little too normal for me some days, so when I sat down to write to you about how different the end of summer is for us as home schoolers than those of you sending your kids back to school…well, I came up blank.
Sure, I might have a lot shorter school supply list to fill than you do, but everyone needs paper, notebooks, pencils, markers, and glue sticks, right? (OH, THE GLUE STICKS. I take back every mean thing I ever said about teachers requesting an obnoxious number of glue sticks. What do kids DO with those things? Eat them for mid-morning snack?!? Glue sticks for a quarter? I’ll take three dozen, please. I digress.)
Your kids probably never wear their pajamas to school, and even though my kids wear their PJs for school at least once a week, we still have clothes shopping to do just like everyone else. A wardrobe of shorts and swimming suits can only mask for so long the four inches they all seemed to have sprouted over the summer.
(Mom mathematics: sunshine + pool water + $200 worth of groceries per week = new pants.)
To be honest, I am dreading back-to-school a little, like a lot of moms are. Some of my friends dread the end of summer, with early wake-ups, homework, carpool, meetings, band/soccer/theater/track/gymnastics/piano practice, and lunches to pack. For me, fall demands more as well. In summer, I am just mom. In the fall, I am mom, teacher, school counselor, and activity coordinator. Don’t get me wrong-it suits us, and I love it. We have done the alternative, and found the homeschool life to be a much better option for us. But I will miss our spontaneous, lazy summer with fewer responsibilities.
Like a lot of moms, I am also excited for back-to-school time. My reasons may be different than yours, but fall holds plenty of anticipation and comfort even though my house will still be full of children. I may not get a lot of alone time, but fall still holds many wonderful things – the peace and quiet of less crowds at our favorite places, more time home together, a marker for the progress my kids are making in their schooling. New books, new subjects, new classes or study groups, friends old and new, and fresh clean notebooks waiting to be filed with ideas and discoveries—these are the treasures of back-to-school, no matter where our children go to learn. I enjoy being back into a routine that is comfortable and productive, where we have a full and (less) rushed cadence to our week, with time to dig into projects and subjects that inspire us.
As a home school mom, I sometimes feel like I live in a totally different world than other moms. I worry what other moms think about us. Do they think we shelter our kids from the world and never leave our house? (Not at all. We are out of the house and with other people almost every day of the week.) Do they think we are obviously neglecting our kids’ studies when they see us out shopping on a Tuesday morning? (We aren’t. We shop then because there’s no crowd, but we might also do school work until 5:00 that day or on Saturday or in the car on the way to Granny’s house.) Do they think we are crunchy granola hippies who only feed our children homemade bread and homegrown organic veggies? (I wish.)
Five false starts on this back-to-school post and trying to think of the ways we are different led me back to the same conclusion over and over—WE AREN’T. So as we head back-to-school, instead I am reminded of all the ways we are the same. For you and me, for home schoolers and public schoolers, for stay-at-home moms and work-away-from-home moms—it’s all so much of the same. We are busy. We are tired. We are lucky. We worry. We plan. We succeed. We fail. We try again. And wherever our kids will be studying this fall, we all want the same things for them—a strong, deep, meaningful education, a love of learning, success.
What can we do to make our transition back-to-school a little easier, smoother, and maybe even more productive? I have a few ideas for all types of moms and kids.
1. Have a party. As we get anxious/excited for the changes of fall, it’s a good time to celebrate with friends, maybe some we haven’t seen all summer and maybe some we won’t get to see much of when school is in session . Keep it simple so that it isn’t another stressful thing to fill your to-do list. A potluck backyard barbeque, pool/sprinkler/water play party, or a donuts in your PJs breakfast are all easy to throw together at a moment’s notice, don’t require much planning, and are easy on the budget.
2. Declutter and organize. I don’t know about you, but last year’s school books and papers are still hanging around our shelves and bins. We were so ready for summer to start, the minute we decided school was over, we shoved them out of sight and didn’t look back. Take some time to sort through for anything important, store it away somewhere else, and start with a clean, inviting space for school work or homework. Pretty jars of freshly sharpened pencils, a whole set of new markers, and a stack of crisp white paper almost makes it fun to do homework, right?
3. Plan menus for at least two weeks. Summer was full of fun, and I barely gave any thought to meals. The kids threw together whatever they could find for breakfast and lunch—baloney on bagels, anyone? Dinner largely consisted of some grilled meat and fresh vegetables. Because fall requires more of my brainpower and energy elsewhere, the transition is a lot easier if I don’t have to think too hard about what to cook. That’s why I like to sit down and plan about two weeks of dinners, including a few super fast and easy options, make ahead freezer stash meals, and slow cooker options to make life just a little bit easier.
4. Refresh your bookshelf. Reading is a ritual in our house. Since the days my babies came home from the hospital, we wound down our days to bedtime with reading. During summer, we wander off this a bit. They still do plenty of reading, but most of it happens in the car, on our way to adventures. As school approaches, we spend some time browsing the library and exploring book lists on Pinterest to restock the book bin with new things they will be excited to read. (Tip: When looking for new books for my kids, I search two ways. First, by age or grade. “Reading list for 5th grade” or “Books for 9-year-old girls.” Second, by interest. This might be “dinosaur nonfiction” or “books for kids who loved Harry Potter.”) Reading at bedtime sets the tone for the more scheduled days ahead. It also allows an easier transition to earlier bedtimes. While my kids would complain about suddenly being forced into bed an hour earlier than usual, it’s a lot easier to say they need to be in bed but can read until they’re sleepy. It’s a win-win for all of us; strong readers are successful learners, as are well-rested ones.
May your fall days be filled with peace, quiet, calm, and a short to-do list. May your children’s days be filled with learning, laughter, adventure, fun, and friendship. And when you meet a homeschool mom, I hope you’ll strike up a conversation because now you know the two of you are more alike than different.
