Schoolbooks

In Israel, the kids have to choose all their books to bring to school each day because they don't leave anything at school. In Baltimore, Rivka had a desk plus two big lockers and only brought home books and notebooks that she needed for homework (at least in theory). Here, they can't leave any books in school so each day they shlep everything home and in the morning we spend 5-10 minutes looking at their schedules and emptying the books they don't need that day and adding the books they will need. We're getting better at it but it still takes time. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just the textbooks but we also have to go through their notebooks and folders. It's not the worst thing in the world but it is a pain in the neck (literally for the kids who have to shlep all the stuff to school). I had been under the impression that this was only for their school since they're not in a real building but apparently this is common in Israel. So each morning we go to the desk where they store all their stuff and they give me the old books and I take out the new. Rivka then organizes the books in order of her classes so she's completely ready for each class and doesn't waste any time. Zvi takes all the books and stuffs them in his schoolbag so that he can finish as quickly as possible to go ride his bike or something else fun until it's time to go to school. So his teacher just called us to complain that his schoolbag is a mess and he can never find the books he needs so we need to encourage him to keep it neat. One more thing to worry about in the mornings.