Thursday, August 17, 2006

School shopping

I had the privilege of going school shopping the other night, with my husband and without my children. As this is our first year of homeschool, I believe we may have gone a little overboard with purchasing our supplies. I was afraid I would be right in the middle of a lesson and not have what I needed. Plus, lots of old homeschool veterans have told me, over and over, "Make sure you have what you need. Don't try to scrimp on supplies. You will only create frustration." So, off to K-Mart I went, with my wallet-carrying husband in tow.

We got everything on the list in the curriculum, in duplicates, along with some extras for J-Bo to play with while the older two are having school. We spent about $115. At first, I could not believe how much it cost. Then, I happened to take a look at the lists of required from the public schools that were on all the shelves. There was more stuff on there than we bought. They now require hand sanitizer, tissues, wet wipes, crayons and such to share, specific types of notebooks (and woe to you if you buy the wrong one!); the list went on and on. After glancing at the lists, I believe that we would have had more in supplying the kids for public school!

I thought it was supposed to be free . . . .

1 comment:

Cathy said...

Oh, yeah. We definitely spent more than that AND we could not find the "right" size of post-it notes. Why do fourth graders need post-it notes anyway? AND we have to send in $5 for the "special" planner that can ONLY be ordered through school.

And don't even let me get started on the supplies which are community property.

Okay. Calming down now. Breathing deeply.