I just love the start of a new school year. I get so excited about all the new books, new artists, new composers—but I also get just a little bit panicked at the thought of the next level of maths. (This year my eldest is doing Pre-Algebra. Send thoughts and prayers; I don't know if I remember anything about algebra. Thank goodness for Math-U-See dvds.)
I start preparing for the new school year in October, which gives me a nice long time to get myself sorted. But there is always something I forget until the week before school starts—usually something I still need to print—and I always forget about dictation until it's time for dictation and someone asks for their reading. This year my eldest just continued with Lady Anne Barnard's letters, but I had a last-minute scramble to find something for my year 6. I pulled Juliet Marais Louw's When Johannesburg and I Were Very Young off the shelf, handed it to her, and hoped for the best. You can't pre-read everything, right?
I think I'm ready for the year now. Well, I'm ready for term one, at least.
This year I have a year 8, year 6, and year 2. We do Ambleside Online, mostly as written, but with adjustments for South African history and geography. It is my first time through year 8—and the books look wonderful—and years 6 and 2 are both so lovely. Is it any wonder I'm so excited? I'm so glad to be going through years 6 and 2 again; year 2 has some of my all-time favourites—Understood Betsy and The Wind in the Willows.
We've developed some fun First Day of School traditions over the years. Flapjacks are our First Day breakfast. I cheat and use a premix, and let the batter stand overnight to make the morning slightly less crazy for me. Is it the best idea to have children all sugared up for the first day of school? Perhaps not, but if I tried to replace the flapjacks with something else, I think I'd have a mutiny on my hands. Flapjacks and syrup are our tradition. (Our latest movie night pick was Fiddler on the Roof; every time I write “tradition” here, I hear Tevye's voice in my head. “Tradition!”)
Another tradition, this one fairly new, is to give each child their reading challenge tracker. This year we are attempting two challenges: the Literary Life Podcast and the Alveary Grove challenges. I wasn't going to do the Literary Life one this year, but then I saw it and it's such a great concept. Any excuse to read more books, right?
You can find out more about the Alveary Grove challenge here, and join the discussion on the Hive. What I love about this challenge is that it's not too overwhelming. There is one book per month, plus a few additional categories for those who want more. Both reading challenges have children's versions.
Our other tradition is First Day of School Photos. It's always fun to look back at the end of the year and see how the children have grown. And it's bittersweet to look at the photos over the years. Every year on our homeschool anniversary, our first First Day photo shows up in my Facebook memories, and every year I find it harder to believe my children were ever so little and so cute.
Because we finish up our school year around the end of November, by the time January rolls around everyone is ready to start the new school year. Especially because that week between Christmas and New Year is so strange, nobody knows what day it is, and everyone is on their own routine. It's good to get back into our regular rhythm.
How about you? When do you usually start the new school year? Do you have any fun First Day of School traditions?
We also do pancakes, but we add birthday candles for the grade level and sing "happy first day of ...." to the tune of happy birthday. I'm notorious for forgetting first day of school pictures, and ten years later, we still do pictures of the first day of the third week of school.
I love the tradition of making pancakes! Well done for preparing the night before.