Uniforms for Homeschool? Three reasons why we do.

If you are like many people who follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you are wondering what is up with my kids wearing uniforms for homeschool. I know. I know. It seems somehow un-homeschoolish, doesn't it? Maybe not wanting to stress about if you and your kids are dressed in the morning is the whole reason you started homeschooling in the first place. But it really works well for our family. My kids have been wearing uniforms for homeschool ever since Betty, my second, started kindergarten six years ago. Here are three reasons uniforms + homeschool works for us: 1. Less Laundry My kids each have two complete uniforms. Most years we've done two different color polo shirts, but I found the uniform shirts in a two pack at Costco this year, so we're going with all red, all the time. Anyway, two complete uniforms, and they wear each one for two days. One Monday and Tuesday, the other Wednesday and Thursday, then play clothes for parkday on Friday. We live in LA, so the boys wear shorts and shirtsleeves year round. The girls have sweaters, just in case. What we use as our uniforms has varied over the years. This year it's Costco shirts and Target shorts for the boys. The girls' pieces I ended up getting from French Toast online. Other years I've ordered from Lands End. One year Betty and Anita wore home-sewn plaid dresses I made for them over the summer. The kids don't change out of their uniforms after school unless they have sports practices. If they get dirty, I (or they) just spot clean them a bit. Overall, it cuts down our total amount of laundry by about a third for the week. Yay. 2. Less Stress I was a public school kid, and my mom, who had gone to Catholic school, always lamented that we didn't have uniforms, because it was such a pain getting clothes picked out in the morning. I find that kids not having to worry about picking what to wear saves time in the morning. ESPECIALLY with younger kids. That's why even my preschoolers wear uniforms. (But not the baby.) We have some trouble keeping track of sports uniforms, despite having a dedicated bin that they're all supposed to live in in the laundry room. But I think that's because the kids only wear them once a week, which gives them plenty of time to disappear on us. That hasn't been a problem with the school uniforms. On Monday and Wednesday evenings, they fold what they're wearing and leave it neatly by the door of their rooms for the next day. (Or they leave it in a crumpled pile there, but still.) On Tuesdays and Thursdays, it goes into the dirty clothes bin. In the morning, you just grab it and put it on. Plaid shorts if it's Monday, khaki shorts if it's Wednesday. Done. Fewer choices = less drama. 3. More Cute I'm a big believer that what I wear matters. It affects my confidence and productivity. I actually kind of doubt that the same is true of my kids. They don't seem to really notice what they're wearing. Certainly not the boys anyway. But I enjoy tidy, schoolish-looking children. Them being in uniform makes our school seem more legit to them and to me. It reminds me what is my primary responsibility during the day. Mass is special, so we wear special clothes for it. School is special, too.