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| Drama Queen and Teach |
I’m pretty sure I mentioned already that we are almost done with summer vacation. Sadly, my three elementary-aged kids go back to school tomorrow. Well, actually, Scout is starting Kindergarten, so she only has orientation tomorrow and doesn’t officially start school until next week. But Crafty and Scout head back tomorrow.
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| Gym Rat, Drama Queen, and Bossy |
Year-round school has been interesting. Bossy and the Gym Rat started school in a Montessori School, so they were on traditional for a short time…other than that, all of my parenting has been around a ten weeks on, three weeks off schedule. When my oldest kids first started school, we were on C-track, but after we moved to our current home we have always been on A. (Except for the Dog Walker who was always on D-track because that includes the Special Needs kids.)
That means my kids start school the last week in July, but they get out the second week in June instead of the first week in July. So we are one of two tracks that actually gets a little bit of summer vacation rather than just three weeks off in July. It’s hard to cram in all of the summer activities that needs to be done! We have to have swimming lessons, a chance to camp and fish, the July holidays, of course, and a little vacation is always nice. The years we had kids on two different tracks were tricky to plan anything.
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| Dog Walker |
The other downside to year-round school is that the kids have to have two wardrobes for back-to-school. Instead of cute jeans and hoodies, they need shorts and t-shirts when they start. Then, in October, after their first off-track, they think they need a new warmer wardrobe. It’s nice to have a break though. The September off-track usually comes about a month after my older kids have started school. I’m about burned out by then and not having to worry about homework for the little kids is a welcome relief.
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| Prima Donna and Princess |
Their second break comes right after Christmas and they normally stay home most of the month of January. I’m not a big fan of the winter months. I used to get so depressed…trying to lose weight after the holidays, no sunshine, cold and wet, and just to force me to re-evaluate things, my birthday happens to show up about then. Having the younger kids home has been a welcome distraction and the Christmas holidays just continue right on in to January (except that we throw the tree out the day after Christmas…another post for another time).
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| Crafty and Sport |
It’s kind of funny, I was having a bit of writer’s block and I couldn’t seem to settle on a subject, so I asked Teach to just choose some random pics for me and I would write around them. We have this tradition of taking a picture of the kids just before they head out the door on the first day of school. She must have gone through a bunch of baby books or something to find all of these pictures because they are from several different years. Lots of my kids look alike, so make sure you read the captions although the clothing might give away some of the older ones. I hope you all enjoy a nice August off, but for me it’s goodbye summer, hello homework!
I remember the first-day-of-school-go-get-in-front-of-the-door-I-mean-it-go-get-over-there-right-now-and-smile-pretend-you-love-each-other-is-this-really-so-difficult-for-you-two-?!?! poses!
ReplyDeleteWe don't have year around school here. I have to say that most of my students wear shorts pretty much all the time - one of the advantages of living in the subtropics.
ReplyDeleteYou can see the background get more and more withered as the years go on hehe
ReplyDeleteGreat collection of pics. Your kids are too cute! I just can't imagine how much you must spend on back-to-school clothes, supplies, backpacks, sneakers...it's a lot of $ just for my two kids!
ReplyDeleteFirst day of school already?? That's insane!! Ahhhh, it's too hot for school!
ReplyDeleteOur county is one of the few in Virginia that starts in August, not after Labor day. They have to get approval from the state to start that early. We have more snow than average for virginia and half of the kids live in the county, not town. Some of the sub divisions have dirt roads. :) We need extra days in the school calendar to have snow days planned, rather than extend the school year later.
ReplyDeleteI do not think I would like year round school. It is nice to have them home for 9 weeks, though I wish they were helping clean instead of making more messes. If I let them play on the pc's all day, they do not make such a mess, but it does not get any cleaner, either.
Tomorrow is one of the days I do not go to work, so just an easy day at home? Mount clean laundry needs to be sorted (kids washed stuff all weekend, I help them sort it when I am at home), I need to rent a steam cleaner, as the pesky pup wet one of the kids beds, hopefully the part for the dishwasher will be here so I can fix it and not have to wash dishes by hand. I need to remind the dishwasher loader to check dishes before they put them in the dish washer. The food disposer does not like cherry pits. ;)
We got to the point where we couldnt stand the year round school anymore, so we switched to a school with a traditional schedule. We had to be on B track, so we only got three weeks off for summer. (and all of December which meant that I needed to have all of my shopping done in November)
ReplyDeleteIf we were on A or D track, we might not have changed. I thought that the kids would miss the off track time but they didn't.
Fun pictures of your kids!
I loved the pictures.
ReplyDeleteWe always do first day of pictures too.
Oh how I DON'T miss year round school. Our deal was always trying to get the same track as the babysitter or the friends.
ReplyDeleteGAH!