I Need to be Rich

Subtitled: A Trip to The School Store

Well, I've just flat decided that I need to be rich. I was out "running amok"* with my mom yesterday and we went to one of those teacher stores...The Learning Tree? The Apple Tree? The Learning Apple? I can't remember...

Anyway, for those of you who may not have been in one, it was one of the stores where teachers can go to buy anything and everything under the sun that you might need for a classroom - a bajillion and one curriculum books, bulletin board sets, posters, games, story books, toys for preschool, planning books, and little gadgety things that I'm not sure what they do but I'm SURE I need one to be a good teacher. I could go on and on and on. It's like a candy store for a teacher or homeschooler! I could literally have spent HOURS and hours in there, perusing all of the aisles and, with an unlimited budget...well, let's not even go there.
*sighs dreamily*
And to make it even better - the icing on the cake - they had a PLAY AREA for The Kids, so I was able to walk around and look at things STRESS FREE! No constantly saying, "Stop touching that! Please put that down. No, we're not buying that. Stop touching your sister/brother. Blah, blah, blah..."

---- At this point, I should probably say two things. One, the store was very small, so I didn't feel like The Kids were in danger by them not being within my site at all times. It's not as though I was in a Home Depot in the garden section while I went off to test nail guns. Also, call me naive, but I kind of figured there weren't a whole lot of child predators lurking around The Teacher Store at 2:00 on a Thursday afternoon! ----

So, now my plan is to win the lottery or Powerball and spend the whole $580 million at The Apple Tree. (Of course I'll have to start actually playing these things first....)

I did find some neat things, although only one of them actually came from that store. I got a little dry erase board for Declan that has writing practice lines on it - the two solid lines with a dotted line in the middle? Like a Big Chief tablet? I'm not sure he's actually ready to begin writing, but I think The Store had some kind of power over me that wouldn't allow me to NOT buy something! No, just kidding...maybe.
At a different store, I got a couple of new workbooks for Reilly. We've been working in this Map Skills workbook all year, which has taught how to read a simple map and what a map key is used for, what a compass rose is and how you use it to see direction on a map, and things like that. It's always been one of her favorite things to do, and I love it because it puts so many skills together in one exercise (without her realizing it!), but we finished it last week. So I was looking for something to take its place and finish out the school year and decided to just get the 2nd grade Map Skills book. She was in awe at the idea that she now has a second grade level book but she's only in first grade! I also got a writing book that looked like it would be fun, so we'll see how that goes over.
The funny thing was I actually went to the store looking for a particular language arts workbook and when I couldn't find it, I started looking through other first grade LA books. (I've been obsessed with making sure I'm up to speed as far as LA goes.) I realized that everything that the other books were covering were things that we have already done and that I feel that she knows quite well, so I'm able to relax a bit and stop stressing out about that for the rest of this year! Yippee!


*when I say "running amok" it should be noted that our amok-ness involved her accompanying me to the women's Bible study at my church and then lunch at Cheddar's. We weren't out, knocking over convenience stores or tearing the tags of mattresses or anything heinous like that.