Tag: homeschool life

First Day of School Traditions

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What does a first day of school look like for homeschooling? Can’t our kids just stay in pajamas all day? Do I really need a first day of school when we are just staying home? What is so important about celebrating the first day of school?

When we started homeschooling 12 years ago, I wanted to make the first day of our school memorable. I didn’t want our kids looking longingly at the school bus leaving our neighborhood, thinking that they were missing out. They weren’t missing out, they were just on a different adventure than some of their neighborhood friends. I wanted our kids to enjoy the uniqueness of homeschooling and what that might look like. Yes, they were staying home, but I wanted to create an atmosphere of excitement for the new adventure that they would be stepping into this year. The first day of school became a tradition that our kids look forward to each year.

I do something a little different every year, but they know that the first day of school will have a variety of delights for them to enjoy and remember as they begin a new school year. I thought I would share with you some of the different traditions our family have enjoyed over the years.

One of the first traditions that I do is to make homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Right now, we are about to have our first day of school and the yummy cinnamon rolls are waiting downstairs in anticipation of the kids waking up to start their day. I think the only hard thing for me about making the kids cinnamon rolls is the temptation of eating them. I have to keep reminding myself that they are for the kids and not me.

Another tradition is school supplies outside their door when they wake up. I usually make a little card that says “Let the Adventure Begin…” and then put some kind of school supplies outside their door. This year I bought art supplies and a favorite book that I had picked for them to enjoy in their reading time. This looks a little different each year, depending on what school supplies they need and what my budget is for that year. This also depends on the age of my kids. For example, my teenage daughter is going to have new coffee mug and a book while my younger children get the art supplies. I try to pick a school supply that is part of a subject that they really enjoy learning. I have also had small budget years when the school supplies are minimal, but the kids still enjoy the anticipation of what is outside their door each year regardless of how much of a budget I had to work with.

The last tradition we do is to go on some kind of outing or field trip. This is the kids favorite tradition and unique to homeschooling. One of the benefits of homeschooling is that we can do field trips while everyone else is in school. We have done a variety of field trips such as hiking, visiting a park, going out for pizza or even going to the zoo in the previous years. The zoo is quite fun without all those crowds of people.

It really didn’t matter what we chose to do, we just had fun celebrating our first day with a field trip. This year, we are going on a fishing trip with all their cousins. I am blessed to have my siblings, who also homeschool their children, live in the same area. We have all decided to celebrate the first school day together and take the kids to a lake for fishing. Choosing to go on an outing for the first day of school is wonderful way to celebrate your homeschooling. My kids look forward to this event each year. Again, this can be quite simple, and does not have to be a big event. I have simply gone to a park one year and the kids loved it.

Homeschooling is an adventure worth taking and one of the ways that we can communicate that to our kids is to celebrate the first day of their new school year. There are so many ways that you can celebrate that are simple and easy. I have done all kinds of simple “First day of school” activities throughout the years. We have made special lunches at home, read to them a story, or simply went outside and had popsicles in our backyard. Our kids have loved it when we have had a S’more night outside or played a family board game. Think of what your family might enjoy or what you occasionally do for fun and maybe it would be a good fit for celebrating the first day of school. The important thing is to celebrate the start of their new adventure. Kids will remember the moments, not how spectacular the field trip or activity ended up being.

What are some of your favorite first day of school traditions? What does your family enjoy doing together?

Hope you all have an amazing first day of school! Enjoy the adventure!

Creating a Book Culture in Your Home

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“I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.” – Roald Dahl (Author of “Matilda”)

Creating a love for reading is one of my favorite goals as a parent and a homeschool mom. I believe, instilling a love of reading in your children will lead them onto the road of developing an on-going love of learning. Sarah Clarkson, author of “The Book Girl” wrote, “Reading, rather, is a journey. Reading is the road you walk to discover yourself and your world, to see with renewed vision as you encounter the vision of another. Reading is a way of walking with the wise as you trek down the road of life, offering a hand to guide you, a voice to help you look up from the dust and discover the sunset, a friend in whose words you can shelter when life sends you a storm. Reading is a way to live.” (Book Girl p. 18) I believe reading books helps shape who my kids want to be. Creating a book culture in my home is part of helping them to become who they are meant to be.

The journey to creating a book culture is full of ups and downs. I have tried different things to incorporate books in our lives that have worked out beautifully and I have done other things that were total failures. I thought it would be fun to give you a glimpse into our home of some of the ups and downs of walking out that journey of creating a bookish culture in our home.

3 Things I did that helped cultivate a book culture in our home:

  1. The simple activity of reading aloud. Reading aloud to my kids has taken many forms depending on the rhythms of our lives at the time. My favorite current way that we have included reading aloud in the rhythms of our life is “Morning Time”. This is a daily time where all my kids from teenagers to my youngest gather together and I read aloud to them. We read everything from the Bible to Shakespeare to fiction books that keep us on the edge of our seats. My goal with “Morning Time” is to read books to my kids that they might not pick up themselves and to create an atmosphere for great conversations. This is my favorite activity that we do as a family in our homeschool. It brings my kids all together and we have developed our own book culture and language based on the books that we have read. There are random references to books that we have read that will sneak their way into everyday conversations. These are the moments that bring me delight. Sometimes life has been so busy that “Morning Time” has become non-existent. Reading aloud with my family has looked quite different in the busier times of our lives. Another way that we fit reading aloud in is through the use of audible books. I remember a season where I never seemed to be leaving the car due to all the appointments that one of my children had to attend. I decided to take advantage of my captive audience and we would listen to delightful audible books. This activity ended up being one of my kids favorite things to do. Even now, as we start up the new school year, the lively discussions or you might call it arguing has started on what Audible book we will be starting with when we go to our co-op. If reading aloud is not something that you enjoy, audible books in the car are a great way to instill a love of reading in your kids. I try to remind myself in the busy times of our lives that even if I read aloud 10 minutes a day, I am still helping to create a book culture in our home. I need those reminders because sometimes, ten minutes is all the time I have to read to my kids. The rhythms of life can get busy and sometimes the last thing I have time for is reading aloud. The ten minutes a day helps me to not be overwhelmed and realize I can still delight in books with my kids, even in the busiest of times.
  • 2. Creating a Mother/Daughter Bookclub with my daughter
  • In the last year, I decided to start a Mother/Daughter Bookclub with my fifteen year old daughter. I am a mom of four boys and one girl. In our world of wonderful men, we needed some girl time. The love of books is a common language that my daughter and I share. The bookclub is simple to do because it consists of just my daughter and me. My goal in starting this bookclub was to introduce my daughter to literature that she might not pick up on her own and to facilitate great conversations that might come out of reading these books. We take turns on picking the books to keep the interest level high. My first book pick was “To Kill A Mocking Bird” by Harper Lee, my daughter’s first book pick was “Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins. So we might go from classical to a dystopian society but the purpose of the bookclub is still in place. We are creating space for great conversations and developing a book culture in our home.
  • 3. Incorporating Books In the Love Language of my Children
  • Now I do have one child who if you asked him to read, it is probably the last thing that he would want to do. He does enjoy the read aloud time with the family or the audible stories in the car but he is going through a season where he doesn’t see reading as something you enjoy. So, how do you help develop that love of reading in the reluctant reader? You find something they do love and connect it with reading. This reluctant reader of mine loves hamburgers. So, we made a deal and decided that when he had finished the historical novel that I needed him to finish, I would take him out to his favorite hamburger place and we would discuss his thoughts on the book. The amount of books that your child reads is not important. What is important is that they learn to how to have a great conversation about what they think about a book. If you have a reluctant reader, don’t pile on the books. Pick the few books that you wouldn’t want them to leave home without reading. Pick books that are enjoyable and fast paced. There is nothing worse for a reluctant reader than a slow paced book.

3 Things that did NOT help cultivate a book culture in our home:

  1. My need to finish a book no matter what. My personality of needing to accomplish and finish what I have started has not helped create a love of reading. When I start a read aloud book with my kids, I am bound and determined to finish it until the bitter end. Even if we are all hating the book at the time. As you can probably guess, this does not endear a love of books in my children. I have learned through my stubborn mistakes that there are too many amazing books to read out there and I can indeed put the book down. I still have the strong desire to finish what I start, but I am open to the idea of putting aside those books that our family is not enjoying.
  • 2. Choosing all the books for my kids I am a bookworm at heart and one of my favorite pastimes is to curate wonderful and amazing books for my kids. What I didn’t realize is that no matter how brilliant my choices might be, my kids needed to develop their own reading life. When I started to allow them to have choices on what to read, their love of reading grew immensely. Then, it was easy to curate a book once in awhile that I wanted them to try. I still believe it is an excellent idea to expand your children’s reading taste, but I also have found the value in letting them choose.
  • 3. I didn’t create space in our daily lives for reading. Trying to be the most wonderful homeschool teacher and parent I could be, I would fill my kids day with wonderful learning and various activities that would give them the best education they could have or so I thought. What I didn’t realize at the time, I wasn’t leaving any space for reading. They had many different “required” reading assignments, but they didn’t have a time where they could read what they wanted. My ultimate goal as a homeschool parent wasn’t that they checked off all the tasks that that I have assigned, but that they develop a love of learning. My “ideal” way of doing our daily homeschooling was actually killing their love of learning. So, one of the ways that helped that love of learning to grow was our free-reading time. Everyday after lunch, they had free reading time where they could read whatever they wanted. This is now a favorite part of my kids day. Even my littles when they were younger and couldn’t read, would listen to audible books. This also created space for me to read as well, which was an added bonus.

There is no perfect formula to developing a book culture in your home. These are just few things that have worked for my family, but every family is different and perhaps, even at different stages in life. For example, when I had toddlers, the “free reading” time would have looked drastically different. It might have just been a small read aloud time with picture books. I didn’t even start to think of a book club with my daughter until she was a teenager. As my kids grow, I find that I need to change things up to meet their needs in the stage that they are in. Creating a book culture in your home is a delightful journey worth taking. It has been one of my favorite things to do in our homeschool journey.

My favorite resources for learning more about creating a book culture in your home:

  1. Read Aloud Revival- This site’s whole mission is to cultivate a book culture in your home. They have an excellent podcast and website full of resources.
  2. “The Read Aloud Handbook” by Jim Trelease
  3. “The Enchanted Hour” by Meghan Cox Gordon
  4. “The Read Aloud Family” by Sarah Mackenzie