4 Best Back-to-School Strategies

I’ve spent the last two weeks getting ready for school.

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Not for me to go to school but for my daughter. Of course, there was the requisite new school clothes shopping. I have a teenage girl who likes clothes, and she grew six feet this summer, or so it seems! Nothing fits!

Then, there’s the whole school supplies issue. “No, you can’t have a new backpack. This one is only two years old and in good shape.” “Yes, you can have a new lunchbox as your old one is falling apart.” Oh, and then the REAL school supplies!

We spent the month before school doing all this and more. I do a nesting thing and get my house in order before school starts.

Some of what I did to get ready for the start of school:

-Went through last year’s school papers and culled the ones I wanted to keep. I then put those in 2-gallon Ziploc baggies (they’re big and just the perfect size for this) and labeled them with her name, year, and grade. Sigh. Now the collecting starts all over. (Note: I don’t save every paper, just the ones I want to keep. Then I go through those and select the very best ones. Some also get mailed out to grandparents.)

-Retyped my emergency numbers list and my frequently called numbers list. With people moving and cell phone changes, it was looking messy.

-Cleared the family bulletin board of last year’s ribbons, notes, pictures, and more. We start the new school year with a clean slate – as clean as possible.

-Updated the weekly family calendar. This is a paper calendar I print out each week. It has space to put what we’re eating for dinner (for those rare nights I cook – isn’t that a hoot?  It’s because I don’t have time to cook dinner but my husband does). reminders for dance lessons, who is responsible for taking the kids to their activities, etc.

So, we are ready to start school with a bang – and an organized environment (at least as it relates to school. Don’t look in my closets!). We’re ready!