Last Friday was the big day that we finally got to go school supply shopping! All of the boys (and Mama too) LOVE this special day. 

A few years ago we started several traditions that we all now look forward to, like each boy having his very own list…each boy getting his very own shopping basket at Walmart…then eating lunch at Runza afterward. (Runza is a Nebraska fast food chain that is YUMMY. The boys always read books to earn a free kids meal there…and we save it for our special school supply shopping day. It makes for quite an outing!)

Here’s Elias looking over his list as we climbed into the van to get ready to go. 

Oh boy, and here are four boys with four lists and four baskets. 
It was tons of fun….and yes it made me tired. :)

Malachi is showing off his HUGE-MONGUOUS french fry at lunch afterward. 
The free kids meals came with free ice cream cones afterward too! 

When we got home we organized all of our supplies into desks (which the boys rarely actually use for sitting and learning…but they are super for keeping us organized!).

Yes, of course Mama had to get a few supplies for herself! I couldn’t resist the girly folder (even though of course a plain ol’ green one would have done the job)…and since I needed new scissors…I thought pink handled ones would be nice! Also…that pack of sharpie-type markers was only $3!! A teacher/mama needs sharpies!!

The boys declared this day, “Like one of the best days ever!!”

I’d have to agree! :)

Happy to be at Home is hosting Homeschool Wednesday….you should check it out!

On Tuesday, the UPS man finally drove up with our wonderful box of books!! We were all so excited and ran to the door to meet him. (I’m sure we made his day.)

But there was just one problem. Asa wasn’t here. He was working at our shaved ice trailer that day…and I’d promised him that we wouldn’t open the box without him. 

So we sat the box down (it was about 12:30 pm) in the living room and just stared at it. It was torture! :)

Finally at 3:30 I couldn’t stand it any longer. Asa was going to have to go straight from working to play practice…and I wasn’t waiting until 9 pm to open that box!!

So, we all piled into the van with the box and surprised Asa at the trailer. He was super excited to see us….but even more excited to see the box!! It’s cramped quarters in that trailer with four boys (actually five…I was babysitting!), plus a mama and a box of books. We got all situated and then I started pulling books out one at a time. Oh the joy!

Then, we packed it all back up and took it home…where we then spread it all out on the floor and began really looking through the books!!!!

Now they’re all stacked on on of our couches as I work to go through them and get them organized and make lesson plans!

I’ve also been working on the school room…which means I pull everything out of the closet and off of the shelves so that I can clean stuff out and re-organize it all! It is SO MUCH FUN to go through everything and get ready for the school year. But…as you can see…I’m not done yet. Everything is still kinda all over the place as I rearrange the desks and figure out where everything is going to go.

We are very blessed to have enough rooms in our house that we can actually designate a room just for school. However, I’ve found that we use that room as a “hub” for all of our books and projects…but we don’t spend all of our school hours in there. I’ll share more about that later!

In the meantime…I’ll go finish cleaning and organizing and making lesson plans. And, tomorrow, we head to Walmart with our lists and pick up our new school supplies! We can’t wait!

Whether you homeschool or not at your house…I hope you won’t mind me sharing with you some of our hubbub! 

It’s the time of year again when we are getting all geared up for a new school year. Summer break is awesome, needed and refreshing…but by the end of July, we’re starting to think about getting back into our schooltime routine again. 

Because homeschooling is flexible (one of my favorite parts about it), we usually begin our school year the first week of August and end the beginning of May. This schedule has worked very well for us mainly because starting our school year in early August means that we get a great start before anything else we’re involved in begins. (Public school around here starts Aug. 16, by the way, so we’re not starting much earlier than everyone else!)  Soccer doesn’t start until the end of the month, nor do any of our homeschool group events. So, we have a few weeks to get established in our school routine without having to run here and there to soccer practice and field trips.

Okay…now that I’ve explained when we’re starting and why…can I just tell you a little about how excited we’re getting?!

I love this time of year! Beginning fresh with crisp, never-opened books, freshly sharpened pencils and new notebooks. (I get a little giddy with just the mention of the word, “supplies”. Ooh, school supplies? I love supplies. I think supplies is one of my favorite words…)

The boys are starting to ask more questions about what we’ll be learning this year, and I can see the excitement in their faces. (Okay, I LOVE that my boys get excited about learning!)

Here are a few of our homeschool hubbub highlights that I’ll share more about in upcoming posts:

1. I have made my curriculum list and am getting ready to check it twice. There are SO MANY great books out there, and while I’d like to buy $5,000 worth of books that look wonderful….I’ve decided that perhaps I’d better not. I’m working to fine-tune my list so that I can call in my order in the next couple of days. I’ll share my list as soon as I get it all figured out! Just in case you might want to know what we’ll be reading this year…

2. I always order just a couple of weeks before we want to start school. We get so excited when the books come in…which makes the boys motivated to get started reading and learning…and I don’t want to lose that momentum and excitement with the boys. If we start school just a few days after the books come it…the boys are pumped and ready. A few days after I order, we all start watching for the UPS truck. It is ONE EXCITING DAY when Mr. UPS Man brings our heavy box of books! 

3. I’ll make each boy a list of the school supplies (supplies!!!) he needs…then we’ll head off to Wal-mart where each boy gets to carry his own basket and pick out his notebook colors, get a new crayon box, etc. THIS is probably one of our FAVORITE days of the whole year. I can’t wait to share more about this day with you!

4. We always give our school room a thorough cleaning, and then we rearrange the desks and rugs and bookshelves so that we start our school year in a “new room”. The boys love this part too.

5. Each school year, Matt and I decide on a new “Godly Character Training” focus for the boys. We make a fun chart so that we can reinforce the behaviors we want to see in our kids. It seems that the beginning of a new school year is a good time to re-focus and begin fresh. The boys always anticipate finding out what new chart I’ll make for them! Here are the charts we’ve worked through in the past several years.  I am SUPER excited about the idea we came up with for this year. I’ll be designing it and showing it to you soon! I think the kids are going to love it. (By the way, we never use these charts as a reward system. All we have to say is something like, “Elias, you did what I asked without arguing or complaining. You are really shining like a star right now. Go put a star on your chart!” His face will light up and he’ll put a star on his chart and that’s it. We don’t give them anything for having a certain number of stars on their charts. The reward is just having Mama and Daddy notice that they are being like Jesus.)  Okay, I am super excited to get this years chart finished up!

6. We usually let the boys have one big “Before School Year Bash” where they can each invite one friend over for a little party. 

Okay…enough hubbub for now. I’ll have the camera ready so that I can share with you all of our special days of getting ready for school to start! Feel free to ask questions and I’ll try to answer them as I write these posts! 

I’m curious about any of the special before-school traditions you have (homeschool or not)! And also…does anyone else get excited about the word “SUPPLIES” like I do?! Just wondering!