Rocking Chair Pondering

July is creeping on by and the back to school ads have started. We typically take a couple months off for summer and when it starts getting too hot to enjoy being outside….we slowly immerse ourselves back into school. We enjoy have longer breaks around the holidays so this works perfectly for us. I need to sit down and write a basic outline for what we’ll be doing this year. We always have the basics: reading/language arts, math, science, history. Once I have that pegged down, I like to ask the kids what their goals are or what they would like to learn about. They have great ideas and seem to enjoy being involved in the planning process. Are they jumping for joy at the idea of bookwork? Not really, but they do enjoy how we are in control of the lesson planning and flow of our school day. They also enjoy that learning does not only come from bookwork… it’s taught in our day to day living, field trips and travel. If we slow down and really think about it, we are almost always learning something new.

First things first, I know we will need more pencils and paper. I think it’s important to put pencil/pen to paper and write. We go through a lot of dry erase markers and highlighters so I’m going to throw those in my cart as well. I need a new planner. A friend suggested this one, so I think I am going to give it a try. It seems to have a really nice layout AND it’s super cute. Win, win, right?! I need to go through our art supplies and see if we need anything. I had restocked back in April so hopefully we have what we need to get started. What are some of your must haves for going back to school?