6:00 am
Sitting on the bed, drinking a cup of tea, and thinking about the plan for the day.
I woke the children up a few minutes ago and now Buggle, stumbles past on the way to the bathroom where he left his school pants last night.
School pants?
He’s homeschooled, isn’t he?
Yes, but the children wear uniforms on school days, during school hours.
Navy blue or khaki bottoms (pants for the boys, and these wonderful uniform skirts with built in shorts for Mouse!) and a polo shirt, or a cotton button down shirt or blouse.
We’ve done it for a few years now. Actually, as I look back through the archives it seems we’ve been wearing school uniforms since Jack was a baby! It helps everyone to be focused on lessons as our primary work for the day. It cuts down on the “what do I wear?” questions in the morning which helps our morning dressing and chores to run more smoothly. We run less laundry as school uniforms can generally be worn for a couple of days in a row, and play clothes can be grubby (and therefore worn for a couple of days) since we don’t wear them anywhere that looking clean and tidy matters.
Errand running gets school uniforms as we are much less likely to get questions when the children look like they are supposed to be in school (I wonder if people just assume that we are coming from a doctor’s appointment or if it’s just that school children in uniforms during the day is such a normal sight here that my children sort of fade into the background? (if that’s the case it’s the only time they ever do!!).
Extra curricular activities get school uniforms too (which means that today Buggle took his pants off at noon and ran them through the laundry so he had a clean pair of pants for choir practice this evening, as he only has one pair right now due to an tripping and ripping out the knees on the other pair last week) since dressing neatly shows respect for the teacher and classmates of your chosen activity.
This year I’m joining them in a “mom uniform”!
I stumbled across a couple of skirts in khaki and blue at the thrift store the other day, and I have polos and button down shirts. So now I put on my skirt and top every morning and am “dressed for school”. My clothing shows that I am ready to get down to business and that I respect my students and our mutual task of learning.
When school is over I often change into jeans, although some days I stay in a skirt if we are going to go out for some reason.
What about you? What are the things that you do to show that lessons and learning are important “work times”?