Flirting With Ideas
Before mask and social distancing were a regular part of our daily life and conversations I had started what I like to say “flirting with the idea of homeschooling” With there being so many safety variables coupled with the emotional and social pressure I thought that it might be a positive option to explore. I have very strong beliefs regarding high quality education and have done everything possible to give my school aged child access to only the best in education. Well fast forward through the abrupt shut down resulting in school closures that idea of homeschooling quickly became a reality! It was such an incredible and unique experience but at the end I thought, I think we’ll stick with public school…and thats where God laughed at my plans. I really feel that all of this has happened for a reason and I’m going along with the plan haha!
Why We Chose Distance Learning
So if you are here you most likely are looking for guidance on going back to school during a pandemic. As a Registered Nurse looking over the data that we currently have I felt that the best choice for us was something with a remote learning option but guess what?!? With the exception of preschool none of the kids will be in person for the beginning of the academic year 20-21…atleast not yet. California is considered a hot spot and until we have the numbers to prove that sending our kids back to school in person is the safest thing to do it won’t be school as usual for quite some time. So we were given two options a hybrid option or a distance learning option, (fingers crossed for independent learning option coming soon.) Our district is one of the best in the state and I wanted to give my child the option with the most academic resources while learning remotely. I think that the additional educational resources provided served us better than leaving it all behind and going to independent homeschooling at this time. There are so many options out there and I felt that this option was the best for our family. I strongly believe families should choose the option that best fits their family and child’s needs best. We are all in this together and guess what?!? None of us have done this before so I have been preaching the phrase of “giving grace” all day when this subject comes up.
Back To School:ish Shopping
With all of that being said as a mom back to school shopping has always been one of the highlights of summer. As a kid picking out my new folders and supplies was always so exciting and its really become a tradition that we all look forward to. So this year I was slightly perplexed on what to buy for school supplies. So I did what I know how to do best, I gathered my research and assembled a plan. Thats what I am going to share with you here on this blog post.
Supply List
Since our district hadn’t yet sent out a list of assigned teachers there was no teacher or grade specific supply list available. But there is a website that I found here with the sought after list. On that site I was able to put in our school and find a supply list specific to our school that states it was last updated in June of 2020. I thought “perfect” I’ll start here! From that website you can actually click your preferred retailer and it will give you a pre-filled shopping cart specific to that school. How cool is that!?! I used that list to customize my list for what I would buy. I found that Target and Amazon have had the best sales so thats where I shopped. Due to the fact that I had bought so many school supplies when the lockdown started I took inventory of what we already had and added where I needed to. I also added on a case of 5000 sheets of printing paper from costco for under $30 which was such a good deal! Our school provides our children with a laptop but I was able to buy a great one that you can find here for christmas a couple years ago that works great and is a great price!
Additional Resources
Currently I’m researching and assembling a list of additional educational resources for things such as reading, vocabulary, and additional math support but I think it would be wise to see what our district will provide first. They have always been great with giving our kids access to 20+ resources, apps and subscriptions and I don’t want to buy something that they may provide for free. If I feel that the distance learning curriculum is lacking and those additional resources are not available I will share what I will be using to supplement in another blog post.
I hope this helps in giving you a starting point on where to begin your back to school shopping list! Cheers to back to school:ish!!
