First Day of the Homeschool Year!

Like many homeschoolers, we view learning as something that is always happening, year-round... But we still get excited for the beginning of the “school” year, just like everyone else! For us, the beginning of the school year marks the return of the few daily lessons we do (mostly math and writing) but more importantly, it marks the beginning of all the kids' fun school-year activities! We are active in our local homeschool group, where we participate in things like a Nature Club, Book Discussion Group, Chess Club.  We also take part in the annual Science Fair, History Fair and Art and Music Fair. Our group also has regular Games Days and various field trips throughout the year, which we very much look forward to. Additionally, this is the time of year when Ladybug and Monkey start up all of their dance classes again. So you see, we have much to look forward to when September rolls around!

Today was officially our First Day of the Homeschool Year. Because school always started the Wednesday after Labor Day when I was a kid, that is the tradition I continue with my homeschoolers! Here is a little glimpse of how our day went: 

We started with a special breakfast… Breakfast Bread Pudding!

The Breakfast Table, all ready!

Happy Homeschoolers, about to eat their breakfast.

The Man of The house put up a little warm-up Math Problem on the board for each kid, just for fun.

After morning chores were done, the kids settled into their first task of the year… decorating and personalizing their binders, which they will use to keep their work together throughout the year.  Each year, we get a new binder for each child, and the previous year’s binder gets filed away, as a record of what each kid did that year. They love to make their binders their own, by decorating them with their own artwork.

Next, each child wrote out their goals and hopes for the coming year.  I will keep these papers in my homeschool binder, and at the end of the year we will look back, and see how much progress they made toward those goals. 

After their work for the day was done, each child got a little “Not-Back-to-School” present.

No, it's I didn't give them wontons...
just a few little chocolates and some stickers, tucked into these cute, tiny little boxes!

It was a nice, gentle start to the year, which was nice for the kids, but also for The Man and I, who have to get back into the swing of juggling both our Homeschoolers and our daycare kiddos throughout the day! So far so good… we’ll see how it goes as the year goes on and things get busier!