Back-to-School Traditions for Homeschoolers

It’s that time of year! Back-to-school fun is here – even for homeschoolers. I like to spread out our back to school fun throughout our first week or so because there are just so many great ideas that I can’t simply choose one. I like to keep the first week of school pretty laid back, so that gives us extra time away from the “official school work” to enjoy some end of summer fun. Here are some of my favorite ideas for back to school traditions for homeschoolers.

 

This Year’s Back-to-School Fun

We ease into our school year, and this year is no different. After we mapped out our schedule for this coming year, our homeschool nature group planned a hike for the same day as our first day of school. No problem there! Our first day of school will be spent by a beautiful mountain stream exploring nature with friends. We’ll start our day with a new read aloud book and some morning basket time before heading off on our adventure. Depending on how long we stay on the hike, we’ll end the day with more read aloud time. I usually don’t expect much school work on these big nature adventure days.

Related Post – Hiking with Kids – What to Pack

 

For the next three days of our first week of school, we’ll add in all of our history and science materials from BookShark. These are my girls’ favorite subjects, so if we do any school at all these have to be included. We’ll also add in math and spelling. These will be half days. We’ll work in a relaxed manner until lunch. It’s fine if we don’t get to other subjects during this first week of school. In the afternoons, we’ll go swimming one day, bowling another, and watch a movie at a theater the other day. Each day will have a fun activity in the afternoon, and I’m sure there will be ice cream at some point! I keep the first week of school to a 3 or 4 day week with easy days. We’re just trying to re-establish the routine of doing more formal lessons.

For the final day for the week this year, we’re actually joining over 30 homeschool families on a weekend camping trip! So, the final day of our first week of school will be the start of this adventurous weekend. So, why not just delay the start of our year until after the hiking day and camping trip? That would make sense, but these events give us something fun with which to start and end our week. It seems like this would be a fantastic way to kick off a new school year – out in nature with our friends. Plus, this is an easy way to remind myself to take things slowly. It’s exciting to jump into our new year, but I don’t want to start off full steam ahead when my kids are still in summer fun mode.

 

Back-to-School Traditions for Homeschoolers

Not every back-to-school tradition needs to be elaborate, but as homeschoolers, we can shake things up a bit. We can slow down our first week so that we have time to do a little something special every day. Here are some ideas to get you started with planning your own back-to-school traditions. Perhaps plan a little something with your friends to kick off the new school year!

• special breakfast or dinner – kids’ choice! Yes, even if it’s cupcakes.
• family movie night with special treats
• pick a favorite summer activity to do again
• nature adventure – even if you live in an urban area
• pool party
• movie at a theater
• bowling
• rollerskating
• afternoon at a trampoline or bounce house place
• make ice cream sundaes
• make a bucket list for the fall
• water balloon fight – parents included!
• picnic lunch at a park
• have a poetry tea time with special treats
• crazy art project with supplies that normally make you cringe…glitter party anyone?! Slime?
• dance party with costumes
• field trip with friends
• visit an escape room
• take a day trip to a explore a new museum or state park
• donate back packs with supplies to kids in need
• volunteer as a family
• take first day of school pictures – highlighting your fun back-to-school activity

 

And if your first day of school is when the public school kids head back to school, take the day and visit a museum or park that has been packed during the summer. Yes, there is a lot of truth to those memes about homeschoolers reclaiming their favorite hangouts once public school kids are back in school! Even if your first day doesn’t fall during that week, go ahead and take a day to reclaim the museum anyway. And yes, that does count as a school day.

What fun activity are you going to do this year for back-to-school fun? What new tradition will you start with your family?