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We have been working on back to school for 5 to 6 weeks now. I go through this process slowly beginning right after our summer camping trip in mid-July. I break this process into three pieces - clothes, supplies, and food (meaning lunches). We begin by sorting thru clothes and passing items down to younger ones. Things that don't fit and who don't have someone waiting for them, are stored until I have a chance to sort them. A short side track - I keep boxes for each size of clothes with blue labels for boys and pink labels for girls. As a child grows out of something it is placed in the corresponding box if it is in good condition. Items in okay condition are given to Goodwill and yucky items become rags or garbage. Even if there are no younger children for a particular box, it is an opportunity to bless someone when you hear of a need. Once items are cleaned out and room is made in dressers, I usually begin by making a list of clothes that will be needed. I buy clothes through out the year, but this is the time of year I think of things like socks, underwear, and other basics. We then make a trip to the store to get the items we are looking for. We do shoes in a different trip. This year I changed my focus from inexpensive items to better made items bought at discount locations. I am hoping that these will wear better and last longer. When it comes to supplies I try to by the basics on a trip without kids. The decision making is too long and involved for a simple box of crayons. I don't want to hear, "can I have. . ." a millions times, so I buy the basics - crayons, markers, glue, scissors, paper, pencils - without child participation. The next time we are in the big box store, the kids get to pick out their choice of folders and binders according to how many the school says they need. This also eliminates the children's belief that they have to have every little item on the school's list. As part of the supply process we also clean out old backpacks and put old supplies in our arts and crafts cabinet. In preparation for taking lunches to school we buy new lunch bags. We stock up on lunch containers and those little cold packs. We make sure we have water bottles to go in our lunches. If we were really on top of it we would have extra loaves of bread baked up and homemade goodies ready to pack in those lunches. Another project we have done to get ready this year is to cut up old magazines. The kids have about 10 pockets with labels like people, animals, sports, food, technology, and transportation. They then cut up the old magazines and sort the pictures into the pockets. This helps clean up the old magazines without Mom feeling like they might need them for a school project. Now we are ready for the next collage/book report/poster board assignment. This time of year I also clean out the kid's memory boxes. Each child has a special box that they can put anything in that they want to that is special to them. It can be a school project, picture, toy, or old lunch bag (yes, one child really put a lunch bag in). They keep these in their rooms and can take their things out and look at them whenever they want. Each year we take things out that we don't feel sentimental about any more and make room for more things. This year I also want to come up with a storage solution for samples of school work and pictures they draw so that I can keep them. For those special little notes the kids write or that card they make at school - DH and I store them in our very own memory box. I hope these ideas are useful. Next time I plan on posting about the upcoming holidays. Yes, I am already working on Christmas shopping and holiday cards. May you too find organization on your homestead . . . |
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