243 - School Prep + Play
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The school year is here and it is time to get in that mode. I feel like today’s episode is a pep talk for us mamas who are getting ready to start the school year and we want to start it strong. This episode is called “School Prep and Play” because we are going to be talking about how to prepare well for the school year and also how to play more this school year.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through below.
Okay, so let’s talk about school prep and school play. As I was just reading the intro to the podcast, talking about working and playing well, and why this podcast is called Work and Play is because there is a balance of work and play in everything we do in life. That is no different as we are preparing for the school year. So the prep part of it is like the work. We’ve got to get ready to roll up our sleeves and do the work of learning, teaching our kids, discipling them, and shepherding them through the school year. But I also don’t want to leave out the play. I say this all the time on this podcast, but I’m usually pretty good at the work stuff, but I can get so good at the work stuff that I forget the importance of play. When it comes to kids, it is so important.
I am not just going to be focusing on play for the kids. I am going to be focusing on play for me. What is going to be fun for me this school year? So a little bit of a backdrop because I feel like it’s really important for you to know where I’m at. Then, you can take and apply whatever works for you, your family, and whatever you have chosen for the education of your kids.
For me, I have four kids and we have chosen a university school model. It’s a private Christian school where they go to school in person two days a week (Mondays and Wednesdays in a traditional classroom setting). Then, I homeschool them three days a week (Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, they are at home with me). This upcoming school year is a little different because I am adding a student. My sweet boy, Beaufort is 5 and he is going to be going into kindergarten. So this will be my third time teaching kindergarten. I am very familiar with the curriculum. I am so excited to have my first student who’s a boy, to see how he learns, and learn from him. My 7-year-old will be going into second grade and my oldest will be going into fourth grade So I’ll have a fourth grader, a second grader, and a kindergartener in school and I’ll be teaching/homeschooling them at home three days a week.
Then, my little guy who just turned three, is going to be doing preschool. We are going to keep that with open hands. May or may not continue with preschool this year. We’ll see, but for now, he is going to be starting preschool in the fall while they are in school and doing homeschool. He’ll be there four days a week, but I always keep it optional on that Thursday. Sometimes I just like to do three days a week with him just to keep me focused.
That’s the setup we’re talking about from my perspective. So some of the things I share might be kind of specific to my schooling, but almost everything I share I am hoping will inspire you whether your kid is fully homeschooled or in a five-day-a-week school. Hopefully this will inspire you and help you get excited to prepare well for this school year and factor in more playful things with your kids this school year.
So let’s start with prep. Let’s start with the work of it. The first thing that I did to prepare well is, I did my school supply shopping super early. I took all four kids in mid-July to Target, into the store with me, and my sweet mother-in-law came and helped, which was very fun. We were able to get all of their school supplies stuff before everything was picked over. You know, if you haven’t gone school supply shopping yet, it’s fine. I love going school supply shopping. I love doing it in the store, so it’s fun for me. That’s also a play element of this. I want to prepare well, but it’s also so fun. It gets me so excited for the school year.
Doing that early has been really helpful. If you didn’t do it early this year, but you like the idea of that, just go ahead and put a reminder for July 10th of next year. Put it in your calendar now to remind yourself to do it early. It’s so fun when you have everything to choose from and it hasn’t been picked over. On a morning in the summer when it’s brutally hot outside, it’s really a great activity to do and to get the kids excited about going back to school.
Another way that I have prepared ahead of time this year (which I have not always done, but I’m feeling pretty good this year) is I have had all of the kids try on their uniforms. When the kids go to school those two days a week, they have to wear their uniforms. I bought stuff off of Facebook marketplace. I had them all try it on and get exactly what they wanted. I’m sure your kids aren’t picky about the stuff that they wear and they don’t have any opinions about how tight or loose things are, but boy, mine are and they need to know what they are going to wear ahead of time. So we had a whole afternoon of trying things on and picking out their very favorite outfits for the year. Each of them get two outfits, which is great, and they are going to rotate those two outfits throughout the whole year.
We have not done this part yet, but another way that I plan to prepare for the school year is a week before school starts I am going to start training our kids on what the evening and morning routines are going to be. This is the same for school days or homeschool days. In the evening, we are going to lay out our clothes for the next day, down to socks and shoes. In the evening, we are going to have our backpacks packed, ready, and in the car. In the evening, we are going to make our lunches for the next day. Now, I will say, I am not going to make lunches or pack backpacks for my homeschool days because that’s not necessary. It’s nice to have a lunch break and we don’t need backpacks in the car. But for school days, they are going to have everything totally ready and set and that is our evening routine. Backpacks, lunches, and clothes are laid out every evening before school.
Then we’re going to practice our morning routine. We’re going to talk through it. We’re going to talk about how when we get up, we’re going to put our clothes on before we come downstairs to eat breakfast. That small thing has been HUGE for us. Making sure they are dressed before they come downstairs versus coming down and eating and then going back upstairs to get dressed. It saves so much time. I don’t know why that is. So we’re going to practice that.
We are going to be getting votes on what the favorite breakfasts are. What are the two breakfasts on school mornings? We are going to practice making those ahead of time. We’re going to go through what the morning routine should look like when Mommy says, “Go to the bathroom, get your waters, load up in the car”, doing that right away, maybe setting a timer and making sure that each kid is responsible for their own things in the car (except for my three-year-old).
On that note, another way I am going to prepare is to train my kids, and this is something I’m learning as a mom, every year. I think we can just get really comfortable doing things for our kids, not because we want to, but because that’s how we’ve always done it. I tend to forget that my kids are older and they are more capable now. Sometimes I do things for them that they don’t really need done for them anymore. So I want to reset with Will and with the kids and say, “Here are your responsibilities (especially for my fourth grader and second grader). Hey, these are the things that you are in charge of and Mommy is not going to be doing these things for you anymore.” Really just training them to take more responsibility than ever for their lunches, what goes in their lunches, their backpacks, and their assignments, keeping track of them all, making sure they’re in the right folder to turn in to their teachers. All of that stuff needs to be on their shoulders, especially as I have a new student who is in kindergarten and who I am responsible for all of his things.
Then, I am going to create any checklists that are going to be helpful. Maybe that is a checklist hanging by their door of the things they need to do before coming downstairs. Maybe we need a checklist for the evenings that is hanging in the homeschool room and they can go and make sure they have everything on that checklist before going to bed. Things like that as visual reminders, I am happy to do, but I want to talk with them through those things ahead of time.
Personally, another prep thing that I am going to do for myself, which I think will help my sanity and also get me excited for the mornings (or make mornings a lot smoother) is that I want to pre-make breakfasts for the week on Sunday so that they are ready to serve up and go. We can make some breakfast tacos where you just heat those up in the microwave real quick. We love to make our homemade perfect bars. Those are great to take in the car and eat on the way. English muffins, bagels, or a day that is our bigger breakfast day. Figuring out how we can do protein, nourishing, and filling breakfasts while also keeping the prep time down to a minimum. Streamlining breakfast. I think that is going to require me to make a breakfast casserole, pre-make some breakfast tacos, or make those perfect bars every Sunday and have them ready to go for the week. Then not give my kids options. Being like, “This is your breakfast today.” So that is something that’s going through my mind. A way that I want to prepare a little bit better for this year.
Okay, so those are ways that I want to prepare well for the school year. I feel like the most tense point of our days is getting out the door in the morning. Even on homeschool mornings, I want there to be some structure with a start time, I want everyone to be dressed and ready. We start with a prayer and singing the doxology. Making sure there is a routine built into our homeschool days that feels like this is an important day and I can own my work and do it well. I’m getting excited, even as I’m talking through this.
Okay, let’s talk about play. Here’s what’s mulling around in my mind about play. Play is how kids see the world. It is their language. It is what makes them come alive. I am always amazed at my kid’s drive for playing. Even with each other, if they’re in good pretend-play mode, they will play straight through a meal. They will skip a meal. I know they’re hungry, but they’re like, “We’re having so much fun playing. We don’t want to leave what we’re doing.” They are so driven by it. So obviously schoolwork is not play. It’s work for them. They are learning, but how can I, as the facilitator, educator, and mom, how can I make school just a little more fun? Just a little more playful. How can I do that for them and also, how can I do that for me? So here are a couple of ideas that I am going to try to implement more often. Some of them I have done before. Some of them are new. I want this school year to feel a little more fun for me andour the kids.
The first thing is pod learning days. This is something that was not my idea, but a couple of friends at school approached me about maybe getting our kids together on homeschool days and each of us dividing up our kids, teaching different subjects, teaching different grade levels, and meeting at each other’s houses on homeschool days versus doing the same thing all the time, which is just homeschooling our kids at home. There is nothing wrong with that, but man, I know my kids are really getting to the age where they are motivated by friendship. I think when they are together with their friends and we make it a game, or who can finish first, it’s so much more fun and productive. Not to mention, it’s so fun for me to be with other moms teaching our kids. It’s going to be a lot more fun. There is going to be some trial and error with that, but I think we are going to try to do one pod learning day a week and see how that goes.
Another thing I want to be better about this year is changing the scenery for my kids’ learning. Taking them outside and homeschooling them in the grass, at a park, or at a coffee shop. Just taking them somewhere else than our normal homeschool room on the days that we can, especially during the pretty weather months like this fall when it gets cooler. I want to really try to prioritize that and do that more often. That takes some planning ahead, but I do think it’s worth it when we do that.
I really want to read the book Teaching from Rest. I have heard this book is so good from so many moms. I started it two years ago and I got into it, but never finished it. I want to read that again just to remind myself that I am the one who sets the tone for their homeschool days, for their learning, and for teaching from a place of rest instead of work and scarcity, which I can really get into that mode. I think it’s easy to be like, “Let’s get all the assignments done. Let’s finish, finish, finish so we can be done.” Teaching from a place of rest instead of that hurried kind of state will be really good for all of us this year.
I think that’s it. The last thing I’ll say is sometimes, I don’t always play the game that’s recommended or when I get my lesson plan and I’m working through it with the kids, sometimes I’ll drop the optional activities or I will just be focused on getting the meat of it done, but I won’t do some of the more fun stuff. This year, I really want to make sure that I plan to do the fun stuff, remembering that my kids learn through fun, activity, and playfulness way more than turning in an assignment or reading a textbook. That’s the last way that I want to really incorporate play. Making sure that I am making the most of the assignments and the lesson plans that we have laid out so that they can have fun while they are doing it. Take more breaks, go outside, and make sure they are really soaking in just being a kid in the midst of all of the learning they are doing.
So that is my episode on school prep + school play. It’s not life-changing or anything crazy. I feel like they’re just small changes for this year that I am really excited about that will hopefully allow us to really enjoy the school year more than we ever have before. I hope that’s a little inspiring for you, no matter where you are or where your kids are, as you prep for this school year, to really think through how you want to prep and how you want to make this a more playful and enjoyable year for you and your whole family.
I am going to close with words from Sarah Mackenzie who wrote Teaching from Rest. She said,
“You are made in the image and likeness of God and you have exactly what you need to be the mother that He wants you to be. Figure out what drives you and let your kids shine within the atmosphere that you create.”
Thanks so much for listening and I’ll catch you next time.
