Forgive me while I PANIC!

It seems like summer has just started.  We've barely finished June.  But summer is fleeting, and it seems this summer will be our shortest ever.

Hannah is going to be attending the neighborhood school for K.  Yes, we homeschool, but I am not a kindergarten teacher.  Most of my kids have gone off to school for K.  (6 out of 8)

When I registered her for school, I asked when we would hear what class she'd be in and all pertinent info.  The secretary/registrar/guardian of secrets/whatever said, "We'll post class info outside the school during the summer."  Um, really?  Is it just me, or is that a weird way of doing things?  You couldn't spring for postcards and stamps?  We actually have to remember to drive/walk/bicycle over and look at the wall every so often to see if you've taped up this info for all the world to see??  I'm not crazy about this plan.

So we traipse past the school a few times, and sure enough, they have papers duct taped up to the outer office wall.  Classy.  :eyeroll:  There's her name, she has Mrs.... how the heck do you pronounce THAT?  Wow.  I hope she lets the kids call her Mrs First Initial, 'cuz I have no hope of getting that one right.  Okay, so she has Mrs Soandso.  And she's in PM K.  Room whatever.  Got it.

I come home, pop online, and discover that PM K runs from 11:14 to 2:48.  Snort.  Okay, whatever.  I so do not do school bureaucracy well.  But really??  They couldn't go like say 11:15 to 2:45?  :anothereyeroll:

Time passes.  We get a mailer from the school.  Oh, goodie!  Information!  Finally!  I rip into it.  Nope.  "Welcome to K.  We're not going to tell you anything helpful at all in this letter, but please save us your box tops, soup labels, and go to this website and click for us!  We want your money, and we're not going to make anything easy for you."  Okay, maybe that's a paraphrase.  But it did mention that A Track starts X date and B, C, and D tracks start Y date.

Do not get me started on how I feel about the track system.  Seriously.  Don't. Go. There.

I notice that X date is approaching rapidly, and decide to call and find out what Track Hannah will be on.  Because it wasn't posted on the class lists.  I checked.  I even took a cell pic of the list, and double checked the picture to see if I'd missed it.  No Track specified.

I call the office.  I'm guessing the same dragon secretary answered that I spoke to at registration because she told me in no uncertain terms that I would need to check the lists posted outside.  "But I did check the list.  I know what class she's in, but it doesn't say what track she's on."  Her response was, "We just posted the new lists yesterday."  Lovely.  I managed to hang up without using my favorite line from How To Train Your Dragon (which I haven't even seen, but the kids watched it where I could hear it, and I loved one particular line), "Thank you for nothing, you useless reptile."

Annaliese walked the kids over to the park a couple days ago, and I asked her if she'd swing by the school and check the damn list again for me.  C Track.

Okay.  C Track.  Good to know.  That means, school starts...  I'm consulting my letter here...  HOLY CRAP!  July 19??  A hair over two weeks?  Really?  Well this sucks!  We haven't even gone to the pool yet this summer, and she's going to need back to school stuff soon?  I don't even have a supply list!

I am so not amused.

I guess it takes having a kindergartener every few years to remind me why we homeschool.  This is going to be an interesting year for us.  Switching to a new curriculum, only having 3 full time students at home, etc.  (Hannah will participate in our morning activities between dropping off the teens and taking her to school, so 3.5 students, really.)  It will be different.  I hope we settle into our new routine well and hit our stride quickly.

I'm actually a bit overwhelmed by the new curriculum now that it's here.  I know we'll be fine once we're used to it, but compared to the stack of student driven workbooks that I'm used to, it looks like a lot of WORK!  I'm trying to come up with a record keeping system that will work.  The shear volume of books we'll be using won't fit in the lesson plan books that I've used for the last decade or so.  But the supplemental materials we'll be using for 3 kids won't fit on the tiny blanks provided in the MFW lesson plans.  I wonder if I could scan it and enlarge each week to be a two page spread somehow...?

At any rate, I'm sure I'll figure something out, but in the meantime I'm a bit panicked at the whole resumption of school thing.  Both for Hannah and for my homeschool students, although for different reasons.  The only people I'm not worried about are my teens.  I'm perfectly thrilled at the idea of my big boys having somewhere to go for a few hours every day.  Of course, their school starts more than a MONTH after Hannah's does.  And right about the time we all get into our groove, Hannah goes "off track" for 3 weeks.

Naturally.  :Sigh: