Homeschooling the Teen Years - Clearing out the Crayons.

I decided tonight, it was time to clear out our coloring drawer - the lower kitchen drawer I have always kept full of crayons and paper, in easy reach of young hands.  It was a little sad.  It does actually seem like yesterday I was recycling our empty cereal boxes into crayon cadies.

But looking back at the post about them, I can see it was more than seven years ago.

That little girl is taller than I am now, and keeps her own art supplies - charcoal pencils and pastels, locked away in her room out of my reach (Mom has been known to use drawing pencils for writing notes).  She (and her even taller siblings) no longer need a coloring drawer close to the floor, or so many crayons, for that matter - one box up on the shelf is more than enough for our needs these days. And I can use the drawer space...

… to store immunization records, high school transcripts, SAT scores, scholarship links, college application log-in passwords, W-2s, tax forms, and the other necessary, but never easy to find "grown-up" forms and records for my high schoolers and beyonds.  So, I'm off to throw away a garbage bag full of broken crayons and dried up markers, and then to search out manila envelopes (one for each child).

Closing the crayon drawer on our elementary years, and opening it to our high school, college prep and career planning phase.

It's great to be a homeschooler.