Our First Day of School

Today was our first day of school – homeschool, that is. I have been super excited about this one. I’ve been very intentional about our planning for this one.  I know how quickly our time can get away from us, and the years are passing much too quickly.  I want our school time together to be fun and exciting and to make our kids want to learn – big goals, right?

I’ve never really done anything special beyond a few photographs for the first day, but this year we went bigger, and we did a few things that we’re going to make traditions. We started out with banana splits for breakfast.  (I stole the idea from Laura over at Heavenly Homemakers.) I sliced a banana into each kid’s parfait glass, then added a small amount of ice cream and topped the whole thing with homemade Cinnamon Almond Granola.  The kids considered it a huge treat, and it was, but at least there was still some nutritional value, right?

After that we headed out to our school table and get started with a few of our new things.  We tried out our math mats and then recorded fun interviews for their scrapbooks.  They each decorated a white board with their name and grade level before we went outside for pictures.  The kids were patient as I staged them all over the yard before coming in to an art project and some history work.  After finishing their baseball cards, My Big Helper did a math assignment and some reading while My Little Man had his book club meeting for the month. After chores and playtime, they finished up a movie, ate dinner, and ran like mad at soccer practice.

I love having everyone home.  I love being able to make school days special.

Homeschooling’s awesome – and I’m looking forward to the hundreds of more awesome days we have coming up, because they’re going to fly by much too quickly.

Do you do anything to make your first days of school special?