Homeschooling Lesson #1: How to copy paper

I'm really no stranger to homeschooling.  After only 3 months of middle school, my parents pulled us all out of public school and began the journey of de-socializing us.

Oh I jest.  That didn't happen until our second year of homeschooling.

We began homeschooling for the sole purpose of avoiding the evil that was our local middle school, fully intent on returning back to society come 9th grade.  But strange things happened and we made friends.  Like, good friends.  Friends that went on to lead normal lives and that I still frequently talk to.

I managed to graduate high school, attend and graduate college with honors, and build a little family of my own in the process.  And now I'm in my second "official" year of homeschooling my little champs.   And that's no small feat!  I have a kindergartner, firsts grader, and second grader this year!

When my kids are in kindergarten, I do very little as far as official schoolwork.  I buy about a thousand glue sticks and round-tip scissors at the beginning of the year, and a couple workbooks (strongly recommend Explode the Code!).  I teach math by also teaching cooking and we read Roald Dahl.  Now that I have a first grader and a second grader, we use a lot more curriculum and worksheets, and last week I learned that I was lacking a fundamental albeit crucial and necessary skill for any homeschooling parent:  I didn't know how to copy paper.  

I started out optimistic.  I had my coffee (all aspects of homeschooling require coffee), and my two piles of paper going: to copy and already copied.

Such beauty.

I learned right away not to lift the copy lid too fast, or else the paper would fly out the back and land behind the 200lb filing cabinet.  However, despite the immediacy of my lesson, I managed to do this 5 more times.  So then I learned a new lesson:  don't keep sliding the filing cabinet back against the wall. 

This is a top view of the paper having fallen behind the cabinet.

No copy job is complete without the fear of God 

being put in you by these three words:

I had to copy about 100 pages and I have no clue how to change the cartridge on this machine.  So I did what any normal woman would do - I copied my pages anyway. 

 (P.S. I totally won that challenge.)   

After doing half of my copying, 

I had to flip the pages over and copy the backside.  

I analyzed that machine over and over, picked up printed pages and simulated them going through the machine, and deduced the correct direction my papers needed to face to print correctly. 

Guess who printed them wrong?

So here's to all you new homeschooling mommies out there 

(or the veterans who failed to learn the art of the copy machine):

1. Put your printer in the center of the room, where a fallen paper does not equal a workout.

2. Have your husband put in a new cartridge before you begin your job.  Or don't.  ;)

3. Stock up on glue sticks and scissors - you're about to make yourself a huge pile of scratch paper.