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Target Haul – Back to School Edition

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Yesterday I talked about savoring summer, and here I am today
talking about back to school shopping!  I
am definitely not wishing away the summer days, very much the opposite
actually, but back to school shopping is something that I enjoy immensely, and
my children also enjoy it!  Add in that
we are year round homeschoolers, and back to school shopping starts a little
earlier than normal.

A couple of years ago I tried really hard to get the best
deals on school supplies.  I waited until
everything was marked down.  It was still
before school started around here.  What
happened?  The stores did not have all
the items that I had hoped to purchase. 
To avoid that issue, I now go ahead and shop earlier in the back to
school season.  There is a better
selection, and the deals are still quite good. 
I do still hit up the crazy discounted prices after school starts, but
that is instead for filler items, extra notebooks, more pencils if the kind I
like are still available.
Make sure you read through my entire post to see my corresponding
YouTube video!
We are starting our new school year next week!  I can’t believe that it is that close.  I have mentioned before that we are year
round homeschoolers, so while we do take time off during the summer, and also
have a much lighter load on the days we actually do school, we prefer to have
largish chunks of time off throughout the year.

Because we are starting next week, I realized that we would
need to pick up a few things at Target for the kids. 
Surprisingly we didn’t need nearly as much as I originally
thought.  My main concern was to get
notebooks for the kids, and that is such a basic piece of equipment for the
kids’ schooling.

Notebooks are probably my favorite tool for
homeschooling.  They are incredibly
versatile, and can be used for anything from planning, to drawing, to actual
school work; and they are incredibly cheap – $.17/notebook for the wide ruled
right now!
A couple months ago I saw a blog post by Sarah Mackenzie, author of Teaching From Rest, and she discussed how using
spiral notebooks was simplifying her homeschool planning.  I have used spiral notebooks for planning out
what I need to do with the kids for school regularly, and only this year
decided to purchase an Erin Condren Teacher Planner to help
with my planning.  But, spiral notebooks
are an amazingly cheap and easy way to plan out your days, and to encourage
your kids to take ownership of their schoolwork.

The kids picked out new backpacks and also got lunch boxes
for the first time.
This year I am going to try packing the kids a lunch and
snacks in the morning (or if I am super organized, the night before!).  My purpose in this is to streamline our
school time a bit more.  I allow the kids
to eat when they are hungry, instead of adhering to specific meal/snack
times.  The reason I do this is because
my kids are hungry constantly, but eat small portions at each meal so they need
to eat more often.  My hope is that if
there is a lunch/snacks already packed, we won’t have to interrupt our school
time for me to go and fix them a snack, they will be able to get something out
of their lunch box and continue on their day.
Some of the other new school supplies we picked up are new
markers and crayons, drawing pads to use for science notebooks as well as
artist notebooks, new pencils and extra erasers, and large construction paper.
I am really excited about our new school year.  I have all of our books now (in my video I
mention they were going to arrive Wednesday, but they showed up yesterday
instead), and am ready to sit down and plan out our first week of school!

Where are you in the
back to school process?  Are your kids
starting school soon, or is it closer to Labor Day for your area?


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