Happy Back to School season! I don’t know about you, but back to school season is one of my favorites. It just feels like such a fresh start, a time to implement new routines and schedules, and a time to smell all the new school supplies. I’m super excited for this year’s back to school season because we are officially starting homeschool preschool in our house. I’ve always been one who does lots of activities with my children (hence, this blog), but this year feels more official. So here I am, to give you all the details about our first day of homeschool preschool!
First day of Homeschool Supply Scavenger Hunt:
Our Supply Scavenger hunt was probably our favorite activity! I bought each of my girls a pencil box, some markers, a glue stick, wiki stix, and a special pen and hid them around the house. I made a treasure map to find the supplies. The day before our first day, the girls woke up to the map on the table and got right to work finding all their supplies. It really hyped them up for the first day, and allowed them to explore their supplies and prep their pencil boxes before the actual start! We will DEFINITELY be doing this activity again next year. It was such a hit!
Special Breakfast:
For our back to school breakfast, I decorated the table with a table runner and some alphabet and number erasers I already had! It looked decorative which is enough to classify it as a special breakfast in my girls’ minds! I also made big muffins for us to enjoy which was a treat since we typically make mini muffins. Definitely use what you have to create a special breakfast- a little decoration goes a long way for kids!
Special Gift:
I chose to get the girls a little back to school gift of a paint kit! Mostly, because I found them in the clearance section at target, but also because I thought it would be a fun activity to keep their hands busy while we listened and read! My girls are craft obsessed, so this was an easy win on the first day!
First Day of Homeschool Interview:
We used these interview sheets to do our first day interview. I wrote the answers for the girls since they’re still in preschool, and they drew their self portrait and signed their name. I love things like this to be able to look back on over the years and see how the kids grow and change. The self-portrait was also a great independent activity that one girl could work on while I was working with the other!
The Actual School Part:
On our first day we read “This is my Home, This is my School” by Jonathan Bean. We went over our entire memory statement board (from Gentle and Classical– which we love by the way!) because the girls were curious what everything was. In the future I’ll chunk it more, but the girls saw the beautiful graphics, and needed to know what everything was! We’re using the Gentle + Classical’s primer!
Then we did some handwriting practice. The girls got to choose a writing utensil from their new pencil boxes and practice tracing squares. Handwriting in pre-k is not something that I stress over, but my girls absolutely love tracing so we’re running with it! If you want some fun activities to add into your handwriting time check out this post!
The sweetest part was when my oldest finished and I drew a little smiley on her page and she just beamed with pride! Then, my three-nanger had a meltdown, so I did some letter A practice with my 4 year old. We talked about some of the different sounds the letter A can make and sorted some pictures based on their beginning sound. Then we did some counting/number recognition clip cards and called it a day and celebrated with a park visit!
Beginning Weeks Scheduling:
The beginning weeks of homeschooling we’re easing into things. We are starting the week before Labor Day on Wednesday so that we can have a 3 day week our first week, a four day week our second week (because of Labor Day), and a full 5 day week our third week. I personally love this because it allows us to ease into the routine and gives me time to make tweeks.
I think it is always a good idea to start mid-week for the first week. It just makes things seem less daunting…and it allows the routine to be set instead of attempting to dive in to a full week of work from the get go!
Independent Practice Time:
One of the things I’ve been racking my brain over is how I will get the girls to practice things independently when they’re still both so young. I know I will need this to happen in order to get some one on one practice in with each girl. So, I’m practicing activities on the first day of homeschool that I’m wanting to be independent activities in the future. Things like count and clip cards, the beginning sound cups, and sorts are activities that the content can be changed depending on what we’re working on, but the activity is the same so they won’t need guidance on how to do the activity. I’m hoping that spending more time working on these activities now will pay off in the coming weeks!
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