back to school

It's nearrrrly that time of year again, time for the little children with the rosy cheeks and shiny faces to head back into the classroom.

This year Bella will be in Pre-Primary which is her first fulltime year (kindy last year was 2.5 days a week) so the preparations have been ramped up a bit this year compared to last year. Plus I'm working fulltime this year, last year I was a SAHM.

SCHOOL DRAWER

One of the changes I made this year is having a dedicated "school drawer" in Bella's tallboy.

It contains:

• School pants/skirts- we have about 10 pairs, about half of which were from her normal clothes anyway.
• School shirts- 6 shirts, enough that I can wait until the weekend to catch up on laundry if need be.
• Box of white socks- I bought some bulk packs on special so we can always have clean white socks on hand. The socks will get washed and go back into normal circulation and be kept in her sock drawer but when they're looking a bit tatty and we need some more, I won't need to dash to the shops. I learned this tip from the parent of a child model- she bought in bulk and stored so that her kids always had fresh white socks on hand for castings.
• Box of hair accessories- these are the ribbons, bows and clips in school colours (I'm not colourblind- Bella's uniform has three colours- black, royal blue and sky blue). Her hairbrushes, detangling spray, elastic bands etc are in with her normal hair stuff. 
• School hat (I should have gotten two but I wasn't sure if this one would be too big or not)
• Leather school shoes- two pairs to avoid smelliness and rubbing. These will actually be stored in her shoe basket at the bottom of her wardrobe but if I didn't stash them in here for now, she'd be wearing them every day and they'd be trashed before school starts ;o)
• Lunchbag, sandwich and snack boxes, drink bottles (and spares), mini suncream tubes are all purchased and stashed in the new school bag down the side of the drawers for now. 

BACK TO SCHOOL SALES

I've also used the back to school sales as an excuse to stock up on stationery for home- photocopy paper, pens, stickytape, envelopes... that kind of thing.

COMMUNICATION BOOK

Another thing that I started late last year and will definitely continue this year- 

The school communication book. 

Working fulltime means that daycare drops and collects Bella to/from school so I hardly ever see her teacher. Bella is really great at remembering to hand notes/envelopes to her teacher or friends but it's still a lot of responsibility for a 4yr old (hard to believe she was only 3 when she started kindy!) and sometimes the messages she brings home are a bit ambiguous or jumbled. 

A communication book means that her teacher or I just need to scribble a note in the book. If i'm sending in bookclub money, for example, I can just write a note saying the envelope is in the pocket and Bella just needs to show the book to her teacher. Last time i let Bella decorate an exercise book and I put clear Contact paper over it and a pocket inside, but this year I saw these cute mini excercise books so I'll just put her name on and a pocket inside. 

GERM-READY

Something I picked up the other day.... Guardian Pharmacies have these great little School Nasties survival guides with info and tips about the bugs etc your school-age child might come across- nits, gastro, middle ear infections and so on. It's chock full of ads but it's free and we're smart enough to discern content from marketing, aren't we? ;o)

Now might be a good time to make sure you have enough bandaids, nitcombs, childrens paracetamol, gastrolyte etc. Get rid of anything expired, leaking or discoloured (remember to take medicines in to your pharmacist for disposal... i'm sure you don't want your old drugs leaching into the water supply!!)  I re-did our first aid kits just before our family holiday so I'm all sorted there. 

ROUTINES

We have a routine for both of my girls every afternoon when we come home- lunchboxes etc in the sink, bags in the bedroom (Bella's in her wardrobe, Ashley puts hers in her toybox) then we go check the mail together. Shoes go straight into the shoe basket and hairbrushes, spray, elastics etc go straight into the hair drawer. This makes everything so much easier come the next morning!!

PRINTABLES

Lastly, I know everyone loves a good printable! The links below each have a dozen or more free back-to-school printables so please have a browse, tell them I sent you.

http://www.livinglocurto.com/2008/09/back-to-school-free-printables-2/
http://blog.catchmyparty.com/category/printables-free-back-to-school/
http://babalisme.blogspot.com/2009/07/back-to-school-labels.html

Laura xx