Back to School… and the Things I Miss
There is something about this time of year that always makes me a little nostalgic.
Every August and September, when I walk through Walmart and see the school supplies piled up in the aisles, I find myself stopping to look at the pencils, notebooks, markers, crayons, and all the things that come with a brand-new school year.
I don't need any of it anymore.
But I still want to buy it. 😂
Maybe that's because I spent so many years getting ready for school.
Getting Ready for a New Year
I taught school in Quito, Ecuador, for 13 years. During that time, I taught K-4 through 3rd grade, and I absolutely loved getting my classroom ready for a new year.
Every year had a theme. I loved decorating the room, planning lessons, organizing materials, and thinking about all the things we were going to learn.
The ordinary school supplies—paper, pencils, crayons, markers, notebooks—were easy enough to find in Ecuador. The harder things to get were the bulletin board sets, curriculum, manipulatives, and other teaching materials. We would place our orders the year before, and when those boxes finally arrived in the summer, opening them was almost like Christmas.
There is just something exciting about a new school year.
New books.
New supplies.
A fresh classroom.
And the feeling that anything might happen.
Eventually, I experienced that feeling from the other side of the desk.
When Our Classroom Came Home
When we moved to Manta, our youngest of our first three girls was in high school. We took a furlough not long after we moved, and she did most of 10th and part of 11th grade in the US. We tried homeschooling for the end of her 11th-grade year, but it was hard... jumping into homeschooling for the first time in high school is really hard, for both parent and student. 😊 So, for her senior year, we decided to let her go back to the US and enjoy all that would entail at the Christian school she had attended before.
It wasn't until our son was four that we decided homeschooling was the best option for him. There wasn't a good bilingual school option for him, so I did what any former classroom teacher would do.
I created a classroom. 😂
I had a dedicated schoolroom upstairs, complete with tables, supplies, books, a calendar, and all the things I thought a proper classroom needed.
That didn't last long.
I quickly discovered that I did not need an entire morning to teach one child what I had once taught an entire classroom full of children. There were no bathroom breaks for 15-20 kids, no lining up, no transitions from one activity to another, no waiting for everyone to finish before moving on.
Homeschooling took much less time than I expected.
And somehow, we got more done.
In fact, I found that I could actually get through most of the curriculum in a year.
I don't think I ever managed to get through every subject's curriculum when I was teaching in a classroom!
That amazed me.
Meeting Them Where They Were
A few years later, our homeschool looked very different.
When our son was in second grade, we began the process of adopting two more children. We brought our new daughter and son home that September. Just in time to start a new school year.
Because they were learning English and adjusting to a completely new family and life, we decided to put them back a grade. It gave everyone some breathing room and gave them time to learn the language and settle into their new home.
Suddenly, I had a third grader, a first grader, and a kindergartener.
And one of the things I loved about homeschooling was that we didn't have to force all three of them into the same mold.
Our youngest wasn't really ready for kindergarten-level work yet, so my husband worked with him at a K-4 level. I still had all of my old K-4 weekly-theme teaching files from Quito, so we pulled those out and used them.
We simply met him where he was.
That became one of the things homeschooling taught me that I think applies to much more than school.
Children don't all learn at the same pace.
And that's okay.
Sometimes School Looked Nothing Like School
One of my favorite things about homeschooling was discovering that learning could happen almost anywhere.
Sometimes it looked like sitting at the table with books and worksheets.
Sometimes it looked like an art project.
Sometimes it looked like reading together on the couch.
And sometimes it looked like studying Australia and then making an Australian dinner.
We would find ways to take what we were learning and turn it into something we could actually experience.
And yes, sometimes that meant my children were learning something while I was learning it right along with them.
I remember teaching history and realizing that I was reading things I had never learned myself.
I'd think, Huh. I don't remember this at all.
Then I realized why.
We had never gotten that far in the book when I was in school!
Apparently there were whole chunks of history I had missed. LOL!
That was another unexpected gift of homeschooling.
I wasn't just teaching my children.
I was learning with them.
The Things That Mattered Most
Some of my favorite homeschooling memories aren't really about the curriculum at all.
They're the little moments.
The lightbulb moments when something finally clicked.
Cheering them on when they figured something out.
Making learning fun.
Reading aloud together, sometimes curled up on the sofa or a bed, and sometimes listening to an audiobook together.
Learning that a trip to the grocery store could become a math lesson—give a child a budget, have them help plan the week's meals, and then see if they can actually stay within that budget.
Homeschooling made me much more intentional about seeing the learning opportunities that were already part of everyday life.
And I think that's something I carried with me long after we finished homeschooling.
Maybe That's What I Miss
These days, I miss the excitement of getting ready for a new school year.
I miss the new books.
I miss the projects.
I miss planning.
I even miss those school-supply aisles at Walmart. 😂
I'm not sure I have the energy—or the patience—to do it all again, and I'm perfectly happy to leave that season where it belongs.
But I miss it.
I miss those days when the house was full of books and art supplies and unfinished projects.
I miss the little voices asking questions.
I miss watching something click.
And most of all, I miss having that much time with my kids.
Looking back, I think one of the biggest things I learned through teaching and homeschooling is that our goal isn't to raise children who can simply memorize the right answers.
We want to encourage children who are curious.
Children who know how to ask questions.
Children who know how to find things out.
Children who aren't afraid to learn something new.
And maybe most importantly, children who know that it's okay not to know everything yet.
Give them time.
Give them grace.
Give yourself grace, too.
They don't have to know every multiplication fact by third grade. They don't have to master everything at exactly the same pace as everyone else.
There is time.
What matters is helping them become lifelong learners.
Because life moves awfully fast.
And one day, you may find yourself standing in the school-supply aisle at Walmart, looking at a package of pencils and realizing that those noisy, messy, wonderful school days have become memories.
And you'll probably miss them.
From the Studio
I suppose it's no surprise that this time of year made me want to create something about school.
My Pencils and Pages kit is all about those familiar school-day memories—the pencils, papers, books, backpacks, classrooms, artwork, and all the little details that make us think of going back to school.
Because for me, those things aren't really about school supplies.
They're about memories.
And that's what Memory Mosaic is all about—those ordinary pieces of life that become the stories we treasure.
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