As we prepare for our new home schooling year, I worry about all the big things. What will we learn? How can I balance our schedule? Will we accomplish the elusive enough in a day? Will we have clean underwear to wear?
My children however worry about the little things.
What new art supplies will we have?
Can we have those colorful grips for our pencils? And, ooohhhh – can the pencils be mechanical ones this year?
My daughter is thrilled because the cover of her new math book is pink. (I’m thinking three years from now when I pass that one down, that my son won’t have that same reaction!)
So, through the years our back to school traditions have come to incorporate the little things.
One of our favorites is making our class notebooks.
We use basic composition books for all our subjects. I like how the pages don’t tear out easily. The lines are also wide enough for even younger children to write on easily.
We begin with one composition book for each subject.
Next, I let the children choose their favorite pieces of paper from our scrapbook paper collection. I use 12 X 12 paper, but 8 1/2 X 11 would work as well.
Then, we cover the fronts of our notebooks with the scrapbook paper. To do this, we fold the paper over the notebook, cut off any excess, and adhere with glue.
We use the scraps that we trimmed to glue labels onto each notebook.
If you want to try covering yours with fabric, you can find a tutorial here or here (both would also make adorable gifts!).
Once our notebooks are ready, and our pencils are covered with colorful grips, then (and only then) my children are ready for Back To School!
What are the little things that are important to your children?
When Michele’s not covered in glue, she can be found blogging about her journey into preparing her children for the real world just in case they don’t become famous rock stars at http://rockstarthing.blogspot.com.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
these look great! What a change a little bit of paper makes!
Sharla´s last [type] ..A Fresh Year
Cool. You make homeschooling look like so much fun that I wanna’ come to your class. Got any extra room?
~ Yaya
Yaya´s last [type] ..The Great Cat House Caper
We just made some of these! Yours look so much nicer. can you be our homeschool teacher?
:D
The little things?
My kids love designing our monthly school calender, writing in field trips, holidays and birthdays.
These are so cute. I made one for my daughter’s journal. We used mod podge to put the paper on. It not only keeps the paper on, but makes it a little more durable to have the paper sealed under the mod podge.