Back to school

As you are aware if your a regular reader I'm a home school mum and its that time of year again when I see other mums rushing around the shops, spending crazy amounts on prison uniforms, oops I mean school uniforms, the little darlings in tow demanding new bags/shoes/pencil cases etc all because they have been off school 6 weeks, I find it crazy that the shoes they had in July can't be worn in September because its a new school year, fair enough if they don't fit but really it's madness, a friend of mine told me the other day how much money she had spent on school blazers - oh my god, that's a weeks food shopping in our house! The radio presenter they other morning declared how happy and relieved all the mums and dads will be because its time for the children to go back to school so the parents can have some peace - erm excuse me but who decided to bring these children into the world - yep mums and dads, can they not cope with Jack or Lucy being at home more than a few weeks?, the other thing that astounds me is parents at the beginning of the holidays complaining " I don't know what I'm going to do with them for SIX WHOLE WEEKS! I am not against good schools in anyway at all, I'm not against parents who choose to send the darlings off to school (I was one of those parents a few years ago) but now I have stepped outside the school norm and I'm on the outside looking in so to speak I can see the craziness of it all.
We miss out on all this so whilst in town the other day we saw all the back to school stationary aisle, my youngest thought it was all so great having a whole aisle of things for drawing that's not usually there, he really liked a robot pencil set and I told him about the whole going back to school thing, he was amazed by it, so I said he could choose a not going back set for a treat, he was delighted at this and promptly chose the robot set, I was pretty amazed myself that for less than £2 he was over the moon at something so simple and something most children expect at this time of year. He was rather proud and showed his brothers when we got home, maybe there is something to be said for the madness after all!
A couple of great sites I use all the time for worksheets are:
http://www.math-drills.com/
http://bogglesworldesl.com/creativewriting.htm
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/index.htm