Get set...

Wednesday was box day! Before church Delores' curriculum was delivered and I was one eager lady to get back home and attack that box like a lion on steroids.  I can't explain the excitement when materials arrive on your doorstep. It's a feeling only homeschoolers experience I guess. I get the same feeling when I see back to school supplies out at Walmart. Quite the opposite feeling of the dread that school teachers feel at the same sight. In fact, even as a youngan, I had an odd love for school supplies. I guess I was destined to be a homeschooler from the very beginning. But, I digress.

After I rummaged through all the packaging paper and bubble wrap resembling a child on Christmas morning, I found this:

29 brand new books (1 on backorder), 30 individually ziploced material kits, a student activity book, a parent guide book, as well as a world map, paint, playdoh, construction paper, yarn, magnifying glass, paper bowls, a plastic cup and other little goodies. Ladies and gentlemen I may never have to buy or make anything for lessons again! Everything I could possibly need except for a composition notebook and pencils was in that box. It was glorious.

The only thing I didn't like was that everything was out of order. Well, that just would not do. So, after I vacuumed every cloth surface of my house and hand scubbed my hall bathroom's walls, baseboards and floors (I was unusually ambitious yesterday) I did this:

I laid out every book with its material kit in numerical order by unit number with the additional materials in front. Also, the very last row has the 4 holiday related books and materials which have no order other than to be inserted into the week with which it correlates. (Also note the mountain of packaging paper and bubble wrap in the background still carpeting my living room as I write this). In the words of my father-in-law, I got "highly organized."

Then I put it all neatly back into the box, still organized, that came inside yet a bigger box. Materials on one side; books on the other so that all I need to do is pick from the top of the pile with each new unit.

Viola! The holiday unit books and materials are currently on the floor next to the box because there was no real way to put them in any order. I'm sure I'll find a permanent home for them soon.

Now that I have taken care of my compulsive need to organize I can't help but feel like I should be doing something else. For two years when I got the girls' lessons ready it was a week long event. Researching, calendaring, list making, shopping, putting together materials and finally presenting the lessons.  Now: all I do is read some notes the night before,  take some stuff out of a box and present the lesson. Thirty minute max prep work. That feels really strange. In truth I never really wanted it that way.  I always pictured me putting together lessons and never really wanting anything that came with workbooks. And while this does not come with workbooks it still feels unnatural to just do what someone else tells me to do. But I guess that is my nature. Always the rebel. :)

In any event, after reading over the first unit's lessons, I'm still pretty confident we made the right choice for Delores and I am excited to get started next week with a short week after labor day. 

Tune into tomorrow for a look into Lydia's upcoming lessons for the month of September.