Back to School

It has been crazy busy around here preparing for back to school. Bubba is starting second grade this year, and Keegie is starting preschool. Keegie's preschool is a government funded program and has been postponed so he won't be starting until October 16th. He wasn't happy about this, and I have concerns of my own. I already don't like that he goes all summer with no physical or occupational therapy, but his teachers and therapists assured me that he is fine. I really did not like the idea of him now going an additional 6 weeks without therapy. I have some stretches and things I know to do with him at home, but I'm no therapist. So I called his doctor and got a referall for him to get therapy at a rehab center here in town. He goes for the inital evaluation tomorrow. And the special education coordinator from the school called me, she is also not happy about the delay, and she is going to do weekly home visits with all of her special ed students until school starts. So even though Keegie is still not happy that his brother gets to go to school tomorrow and he doesn't, I am satisfied that he is not going to suffer. I don't really mind having some weeks of time with just Keegie at home with me, without his brother here to terrorize, Keegie can actually be a very enjoyable child. No hitting, screaming, being mean or fighting, lots of cuddles and laughs with my baby who's not so much of a baby anymore. And, with only one child returning to school, I have had much more time to focus on getting everything perfect.

I've done the majority of clothes shopping for both of the boys online over the past few months. The Children's Place and Aeropostale both had some great sales and I loaded up. I've also picked up things I found at Target on clearance, and I made a small Walmart order for a few of the character shirts they love. So I also have not had much shopping I've needed to do. I waited until after meet the teacher night so I could get a list of classroom wishes and what the students are required to bring. This year, I really wanted to do something interesting instead of just sending in donated supplies in the Walmart bag I got them in. I wanted some kind of project. I found a school supplies cake on Pinterest and I thought it was a great idea. But this one said to use empty nesting boxes in the middle, and I wanted to use something that was also beneficial to the classroom. I spent about an hour in the store, using Kleenex boxes and tubes of Clorox wipes and boxes of crayons and tubes of glue to figure out exactly how I wanted this to work. When I got home, this is what I had.

My mission was to turn this pile of supplies into a snazzy cake. I started by using double sided tape to stick the packages of pencils to the tube of Lysol wipes.

I lined the pencils up with the top of the container, leaving a gap at the bottom, but this would be covered by the glue I planned to put around it.

Next, I used more double sided tape to stick the two Kleenex boxes together. Then, I stuck boxes of crayons all the way around the outside of the Kleenex boxes. I used 3 right next to each other on the smaller side, like this:

And yes, I realize those aren't actually "Kleenex" but that's what I call all brands of tissue lol

On the longer ends, I used 3 boxes of crayons also, but I put two gluesticks, taken out of the package, between each box. Then I placed the tub of Lysol wipes in the center of the kleenex boxes. I used LOTS of double sided tape. The blog I had originally gotten this idea from had suggested using hot glue, I didn't want to ruin the crayon or kleenex boxes. I did find towards the end that rubber cement works quite well for all of this attaching, and I wished I had realized it sooner.

The next step was to set up the glue. I put 2-packs of glue sticks all the way around the pencils. I used double sided tape until I ran out, and then I tried rubber cement and it worked great. The plastic that the pencils were in let things stick to it pretty easily. Then I put a bottle of glue between each set of glue sticks, and I threw a vaccuum mount pencil sharpener on top for a topper.

Now, I secured the bottles of glue to the boxes using rubber cement and wrapped ribbon around the bottom and middle tieres. I almost ran out of ribbon, so just a note that one $2 spool of ribbon from Walmart is not enough.

All done!

The other thing on my agenda was treats for the students in his class. I found a few different ideas on Pinterest, asked him which one he liked and he chose these:

Bags of Lucky Charms with a tag stapled to it that says "I'm so Lucky to have you in my class."

He chose the chocolate Lucky Charms, but you can use regular. You can get the free printable for the tag here: http://whattheteacherwants.blogspot.com/2011/08/1st-day-of-school-treat.html

And now, I can finally get to sleep before the busy morning I have ahead of me. I hope everyones back to school is great this year!