It's the fourth week of the new school year here, and the kids have settled in pretty well.
We're back to our morning routine -- the boy complaining that he hates school until he sets foot on campus and a crowd of little boys comes running to greet him; the girl making elaborate lunches for herself based on some weird YouTube video she watched.
And we're back to our nightly routine -- practicing spelling words with UK English and reading books about Samoan grandmothers and little boys called Tikiwhiti.
It's all a little familiar and a little different compared to school days in the U.S. But one thing is remarkably unique about school in New Zealand: the school supplies.
To me, school supplies means 8-count Crayola crayon packs, heavy-duty glue sticks, those Bic stick pens that run out after a few days, loose-leaf notebook paper, wide-ruled spiral notebooks and, if you're lucky, a Trapper Keeper and new Lisa Frank pencil case to keep it all contained. Pretty standard stuff for the American classroom.
Here, students must purchase a long list of products, mostly notebooks of different sizes and with different types of paper inside.
There's the 1A4 Blank Exercise Book, a classic, not to be confused with the 1B4 Ruled Exercise Book. The Clever Kiwi Reading Workbook might be on your list, or maybe the Clever Kiwi All-Purpose Book -- but don't mistake this for the Clever Kiwi ACTIVITY Book or the My Everyday Book, which is an Office Depot rip off.
The Ruled Spiral Notebook -- that good old American standby -- doesn't get much playing time here, but have fun tracking down a Hardcover Quad Maths Book with Margins.
It's. complicated.
Shane, the girl and I spent at least an hour walking up and down the aisles of the local stationery store trying to figure out just what the hell we were supposed to buy. The store actually posts charts and conversion charts with names of the different exercise books available (seriously, check this out) in an attempt to make it easier on shoppers. Didn't help us.
We totally botched the Quad Maths Book quest, buying one without margins instead of with. (A good friend of mine here made the same mistake and now sits in her daughter's classroom every morning drawing the margins on with a ruler. Yeah, I'm not THAT good of a mother :) And we just plain gave up on tracking down some special Kiwi Activity Book.
I will say, everyone else seemed to know what they were doing. So I guess when you're a Kiwi kid, it's just second nature to grab your 1L5 Exercise Book for spelling and your 1WJ5 Learn to Write Book for handwriting and go on your merry way.
It's also helpful that the school office keeps supplies in stock and will package the whole inventory up for a pretty good price. (We will be the first customers in line for this next year! :)
But until then, I've just told my kids to pass off the Clever Kiwi Scrapbook as the Clever Kiwi Activity Book and wing it on the margin situation. (Who needs margins in math anyway??)
I think I liked it better when the hardest part about buying school supplies was deciding between the Rainbow Candy Unicorn and Psychedelic Hula Cat Lisa Frank folders. (And, really, it's no contest. Hula Cat all the way ;)
