Getting Ready

Summer is quickly coming to an end.  

Yesterday I made the trek to the store (sans kiddos, thank heavens) and spent two hours buying school supplies (markers, crayons, paints, pencils, rulers, protractors, pencil cases, folders, binders, notebooks, on and on and on), gym shoes and gym bags, and more paper towels/kleenex/hand sanitizer than I thought possible.  With four children to shop for this year (oh, be still my heart) I tried to make the extensive lists as simple as possible.  In order to keep myself from getting too confused I went through the store four separate times and bought each child's supplies individually.  It sounds crazy but it actually really helped.  Each child had their own bags of supplies and when I got home and labeled everything (I mean EVERYTHING) it made it much easier than going through the bags all over again and trying to sort out who gets what.  

Now the bags, backpacks, and gym shoes are all labeled, set aside, and ready to go.  Job done.  

This summer, same as last year, I had the boys doing school work in the morning.  There is a fantastic website called Super Teacher Worksheets that allows you to print out worksheets for all different subjects, grades, and interests.  It is fab-u-lous.   The boys are actually excited to do their work.  It is challenging but fun.  

My boys have worked on math (adding, subtracting, decimals, fractions, multiplication, division, word problems) penmanship, reading, writing, spelling, science, and social studies.  Not only am I confident that I am sending them back to school at the same level they left in June, but I know they have learned a bit more as well.  

As a matter of fact, I was very disappointed with the 4K program Ben was in this past year (he learned NOTHING) and was concerned about him being behind in the kindergarten program at my boys' school.  When Ben went to get his eyes tested in May he had to use pictures for his exam because he didn't know his alphabet well enough.  When Ben went to get his eyes looked at again last week he knew all his letters.  I was so proud of him and now I know that all the work we've been doing this summer is paying off.  I am confident he will do well with the rest of his kindergarten class. 

(I really had to chop this photo because my boys like to sit around in their underwear in the morning.)

I am really proud of my boys and the work they have put in.  Technically, we are ready for school to begin.  Emotionally we just aren't there yet.  We have much we want to do.  More swimming.  More playing.  More campfires.  More fun.  

Hopefully these last two weeks will go nice and slow.