This weekend marks the first tax-free weekend in Alabama. This means that throughout the state there are certain items, school-related, that can be purchased without the addition of the state and local sales taxes. I have been shopping all morning. We bought all of our school supplies. We were even able to buy some books to use for reading from the local Books-A-Million. If we needed new clothes, then we could buy those without tax as well, but we don’t really need new clothes. We can do school in our jammies.
We shopped at the Office Depot near our neighborhood rather than Wal-Mart. I thought maybe the bliss of quiet shopping and a smaller crowd with shorter lines would be worth the bit of extra cost. It was. It took a fraction of the time and, since everyone went to Wal-Mart, Office Depot wasn’t crowded. The boys were thrilled when we got back to the van and realized that we had not been in the store long enough for the interior of the van to get hotter than…well, you know where.
While I’m not yet super-excited about starting school, shopping today, coupled with the homeschool convention a couple of weekends ago, has started to make me feel like I’m almost ready to start school.
I have quite a bit of organizing to do. I am thinking about taking before and after pictures of my school area so everyone can rejoice with me when I get it done. Of course, the hardest job will be convincing the kids that they are really excited about school, too. How about before and after pics of bored kids and busy, happily learning kids?
What kinds of things do you do to get the fam fired up about the new school year?
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Leslie Wiggins 
2 responses to “Tax-Free Weekend”
Putting my home tutor/teacher hat on here…I would suggest that if your children are still small make their first project “proprietorial”. That is, give them their own allocated work space and get them to design their own project binder cover with their name on, a representation of their favourite things and perhaps their favourite quote or verse. Give them plenty of resources and say you will give rewards to “jobs well done.” Also, get them to look at your school rules, discuss them, see what they think of them. Ask them to design their own school rules – approve them and put them in their binders. Oh, I’ve got a ton of this stuff and I could go on but it may not be at all useful to you. If you want more tips come on over to my blog and ask for my email! Sorry! What a long comment – I’m a comment hog!lol!
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Hi Leslie – I’m not quite feeling ready for school to start yet either 🙂 My kids find it really exciting to come to the store with me and help me buy supplies. They get excited about using the new paper, markers, crayons etc. I remember feeling the same way about my new supplies when I was in school.I’ve got a few projects in mind to organise and spiffy up my schooling area of the house. I know that will help get me back in the groove 🙂
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