2016-2017 School Year

Ready or not, we commence another school year this coming week. I have changed a few things compared to last year. The biggest change is that we will school five days a week. Last year I did six days a week because I wanted to try it.

It was tiring but I just could not let go. I had to take the experiment all the way to the end of the school year.

Father, son and daughter picking up fireworks for July 4th

Picking up some fireworks for the 4th – one of the memories of the summer which is coming to a close slowly but surely

This year, we are going back to schooling Monday-Friday and taking the weekend off. I am hoping this will relieve some of the pressure I felt last year. It will give me a full day to catch up on my writing deadlines and housework. And the kids get a full day to free play. Knowing them, they will spend some of that free time coding on Scratch

I like to make the first day of school special. I don’t make it into a huge deal, but I mark it with a special breakfast menu (pancakes in addition to our daily oatmeal, for instance) and maybe an outing in the afternoon or early evening if we get everything done.

We will take pictures, of course. It’s the only way to gather up a couple of portrait-style pictures that – I found out – are needed for different things throughout the year.

For instance, last year, their piano teacher made them Christmas ornaments and asked me for nice head shots of the kids. She is an artist, not just a piano teacher, and likes to make crafts for her students at Christmas time. The best pictures I found of my kids were the school pictures from the beginning of the school year.

Then, for this school year, one of our homeschool support groups gave us school IDs. As such, they required nice head shots of the kids. Again, I reached for the school pictures from last year.

So I made a note to self, that we should definitely start every school year dressed nicely and with semi-formal pictures of the kids. You never know when you can utilize these portraits.

What about your first day of school? Do you have any traditions?

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