By now, many of you may be chin deep in the madness of a new school year. You may be a first time Back-to-Schooler, or you may have two or three (or more) starting their classes. You may be homeschooling, preschooling, or full-time schooling K-12. There are so many ways to educate children these days, but the one constant truth, no matter what, is that this is a time of transition that can feel overwhelming and chaotic.
To quote one of my favorite movies, “Take a look around, Helen! We’re at the threshold of Hell!” – Clark Griswold, Christmas Vacation
My oldest children have just started third grade, kindergarten, and preschool. I am past the first-time school mom stage, and, while we still have quite a bit of chaos in our house this time of year, we also have learned a couple sanity-saving tricks that are helping the process to go smoothly so far. I’m a firm believer that if you know something, you should share it in case it can help someone else. So, if you find yourself in a bit of a B2S Tornado, check out what we do to keep our mornings a little calmer, our post-school afternoons more productive, and our evenings somewhat peaceful (if that is even possible in this house).
The Homework Spot
When we designed our house, we intentionally built a space for a “homework spot.” We knew it was important to have a place for our children to sit and do their work without tons of distractions. We also knew it was important for them to have their supplies close by without having to get up 13 times to find the crayons, glue, scissors, ruler, tape, pencil sharpener, etc. As a former teacher, I know that children love to find any excuse to get up and “go get something.” It allows them to delay the inevitable and potentially get wrapped up in a TV show or find themselves in the pantry (I thought you needed a pencil, not a handful of chips). Limiting the amount of times they have to get up to retrieve something helps to streamline the homework process. I also knew that if the space was inviting, clear of clutter, and attractive, they would enjoy using it.
We have a dedicated desk for this purpose so that we don’t have to work around homework at the dinner table. If I am wanting to get the table set, my child can still be at the homework desk. This also eliminates the amount of pizza grease spots that end up on the worksheets (we’ve all been there)!
Desk & Hanging Storage: IKEA | Paper Trays, Lamp, Tape Dispenser, Letter Board, Cork Boards, Ottoman: Target | Cactus: TJ Maxx | Jar: Joann’s | Pencil Sharpener: Amazon
I purchased these hanging organizers from IKEA to hold frequently-used supplies, and inside the drawers of the desk are notebooks and other items such as pencils, a ruler, and other items they may need. Inside the ottoman are learning activities for extra practice such as magnet letters, wipe off boards, Brain Quest card wheels, and games. We love the cork boards for a way to display their drawings, notes, and newsletters. A lamp and electric pencil sharpener sit on the desk to aid in productivity. Each child has her own tray for the papers they bring home, and the top tray is for general school information that doesn’t pertain to any specific child (calendars, lunch menus, order forms, etc). I like that these trays are small, which will limit the amount of papers that can be collected there. When the tray is full, I will go through it and pitch what isn’t important or photograph what I want to preserve (check out this post for how I handle all the artwork and keepsakes).
Inside the jar are affirmations that I purchased on Teachers Pay Teachers. I use these for writing practice as well as confidence building. They are great talking points and ways to continually build them up.
I fully realize that not everyone has a dedicated space in their house for homework. In our old house, we put a very cheap desk from Target in the corner of our dining room and had a similar setup. We used plastic Rubbermaid drawer units for the art supplies and school papers. It still created a great spot for the kids to get their work done in peace.
If you don’t have room to set up an extra desk for homework, you could get a small crate or basket and make sure all the tools your child may need for homework (crayons, pencils, scissors, tape, pencil sharpener, extra paper, flash cards, etc) are inside. You could hide the crate when not in use, but when your child needs to get work done, he or she can grab it and be ready.
We have agreed that on days when both Noelle, who is in third grade, and Charlotte, who is in Kindergarten, have homework, Charlotte will get the homework spot first. She will need more help from me, and her work may take a little longer. Since Noelle is so independent, she can wait a little longer before starting her work because it likely won’t take her much time to finish. Her teacher assigns 20 minutes of free reading per night, so she could do that reading on her bed while I am working with Charlotte.
Lunch Menu + Prep
When Noelle was in Kindergarten, I wrote a post about how we prepared her lunches ahead of time. It was such a great method that helped us so much! But then, for some reason, we didn’t prep her lunches that way in first or second grade (I blame adding Leo to our family and all the “surviving” that was happening). I can tell you right now from doing it both ways, we absolutely were 147% more stressed when we didn’t prep all the lunches for the week. Even when we packed the lunch the night before, Luke and I would rock-paper-scissors for who had to do it. It was just something about adding another task to the end of the night when the kitchen was already cleaned up and we were ready to go to bed that made us so grouchy. On nights that we would say, “Let’s just save it for the morning,” we would inevitably oversleep the next day or just be rushing more in general, which meant that we either slammed a messy PBJ in a baggie or threw in some cold pizza or forgot to make the lunch completely and would have to bring food to the school before 11 a.m. (our school does not have a traditional hot lunch program where the students can opt to buy a lunch if they forget — you have to preorder your lunches for the month, so if you forget to send a lunch, you need to bring it to the school).
I hated feeling so rushed and grumpy in the mornings, so I decided that this year would be different. With three kiddos taking their lunches to school, I knew that we would have to be more organized and prepared. I began by creating a lunch menu of my own. There were two choices for each category (main item, fruit, vegetable). The same items are offered each day of the week, so they are encouraged to change it up from each day so that they don’t eat the same thing everyday. However, if they want the same thing everyday, it doesn’t bother me. Noelle, who can read, makes her choices first, and then she helps the younger two with their choices. She adds up all the selections and lets me know how many bags of grapes to prepare or grilled cheese sandwiches to make, and then I get to work preparing all of the lunch items for the entire week. This past Sunday, it took about an hour to get it all prepped, bagged, and organized, but I think that is a small price to pay for a week’s worth of sanity.
I try to make it easy on myself by giving them choices of food we already have from our weekly grocery run (and by run, I mean when I order it online and wait in my van with my Starbucks until the ClickList Angel brings it out). I am not trying to reinvent the wheel. Grilled cheese sandwiches and quesadillas that can be warmed up (our cafeteria has microwaves that can be used by lunchroom helpers), peanut butter and jelly roll-ups (seem to get less mushy than a sandwich, don’t ask me how), cheese and crackers with salami or pepperoni, hard boiled eggs, grapes, blueberries, Halo oranges, carrots with ranch or hummus cups, and premade salads in small food storage containers (my kids love salad…not sure how that happened) are our go-tos. I am sure I will find new things to try. Dessert is always mama’s choice (which means whatever I find stashed in “my section” of the pantry – Annie’s bunnies, Nilla wafers, or homemade chocolate chip cookies if I am feeling fancy).
I use these condiment cups with lids for the ranch dressing and hummus and lots of snack sized plastic baggies. I know that is not the best for the environment, but it’s a trade-off for now. Plastic waste is bad, but so are my crazy-mama mood swings when I feel overwhelmed by too many tasks. We have a drawer in our fridge that is perfect for keeping all of the prepped baggies.
It now takes us 10 seconds to pack 3 lunches in the morning, and with the menu on the fridge, Noelle can see what each child wanted on the given day and helps assemble the lunch boxes for us if we are in a hurry.
Pssst: I prep lunches for Shiloh even on the two days per week she is home with me so that I don’t have to worry about making lunch on those days either. This reduces the temptation to get fast food and also minimizes clean up.
Bedtime Story Sticks
This tip isn’t specific to B2S, but this is definitely helping with our bedtime routine, which is a very important part of that transition from summertime to school time.
We have always loved to read with our kids before bed. We start this habit when they are babies, and they have come to crave it. We rarely miss a night of reading to them. However, with three girls who now want to pick stories, this can really extend bedtime and create a lot of fighting over who gets to go first and who picks what book. Luke and I are like most other parents – we like bedtime to be quick and easy. We are tired, our patience is thin, and we are ready to unwind without kids for a little while.
So, after weeks of continuous fighting about whose book will be read at bedtime, I found a bunch of wide popsicle sticks and wrote each girl’s name on a stick, and I also wrote Mama on a stick and Papa on a stick. I put all the sticks in a mug, and now we draw a stick at bedtime to see who gets to pick the story. Once a stick is drawn, it doesn’t go back into the mug until all of the sticks have been drawn. This makes sure each child will get her turn eventually (and mama and papa get to pick, too). Shiloh, who is three, is having a harder time accepting when it isn’t her name that is picked, but that is also a skill she needs to learn — she won’t always get her way because she is cute or the youngest girl. Just last night, when her name wasn’t picked, she cried, and our older two tried to trade with her so that she would get her turn, but we discouraged that (thanking them for their kindness anyway), because we want Shiloh to learn that her turn is coming. This is a skill that can also be learned by playing board or card games with your children (but we don’t do a ton of that right now…).
If you have multiple children who are arguing over who gets to have their book read (and you don’t want to have to read 3-4 bedtime stories when you’re already tired and just wanting to get to that Bachelor in Paradise episode from last night), or if you have children who don’t really love reading before bed, maybe doing this little “game” with the popsicle sticks will add an element of surprise and excitement to the routine.
If you have one child, you could write a color name on each stick and challenge your child to find a book with that color on the cover, and that’s the book you read. This may keep you from having to read the same book every night, or it may inspire your child who doesn’t love books all that much. You could do the same with letters. “Find a book that starts with the letter B.”
The teacher in me can’t stress enough the importance of reading to your children, especially at a very young age. It is truly the most important “homework” your children have.
Let me know if you give one of these tricks a try! And if all else fails, there’s wine. Did I say wine? I meant coffee (and wine).
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