The first day of public school in my county is August 1. My daughter and I are going to take that day off and go downtown to a nearby very, very small town. We used to go to a sandwich shop there about every two weeks to eat and watch the train until she was four years old, but finances changed. That sandwich shop has since been replaced by a cupcake/sandwich shop, which interests my daughter very much. There are also two antique shops, a pawn shop, a used book store that we just discovered and maybe there are other shops yet to be discovered. I will be taking a box of books in exchange for credits to the book shop there. We will be leisurely looking for books and other treasures for which we have no room, and the most fun is talking with the business owners and other shoppers, making new friends. We are excited about it! Do you do anything special the first day of public school?
I have a friend that invited homeschool families to a swimming party at her house for the first day of ps. Ds and I will be visiting family in California that week.
We don't do any regular work on the first day of school. I try to coincide our first day of school with the first day of public school. It is usually a day where we open "presents" (new books and supplies), take first day pictures, and play games together.
A friend of mine is organizing a field trip and potluck. We'll be taking a trip to an art shop and learning about the '6 elements of art', doing a craft and have a potluck lunch. Should be fun.
LOL!!! Last year was the first time we did anything. One of our local yahoo homeschooling groups goes to a local Dunkin Donuts and eats donuts and the kids all wave at the school busses as they go by! LOL
I always celebrate by making sure I get up early and drink my coffee in silence while thanking God once again for calling me to homeschool and for changing my husband's heart on the matter. So good. My sons celebrate by sleeping in and not having to be up and in class by 7:30 like their ps friends. We might do something different this year. I haven't really thought about it.
That sounds great like fun! My daughter used talk to the kids waiting on the bus just across the street and wave they go past while I gardened some mornings.
We celebrate the first day of ps by sleeping in, going out to breakfast (usually just bagels and oj) and then we hit the Back-To-School sales. All the stores are empty, we can get a lot of individual attention and find what we want at a good price. I only buy a few new clothes for the kids (for when we visit the grandparents). Then we hit Wal-mart for new underwear/socks, etc. Then we plan something for the rest of the day like a movie with popcorn. Last year we watched To Sir, With Love. My kids are 11 and 13. An easy day.
We don't celebrate the first day of PS. On our first day of school though my kids decorate a sign with their 'grade' on it. And I usually take a picture of them holding it, but I forgot the picture this year!) Then we hang it up on our classroom wall so we might have a chance to remember what grade they in for when people ask! LOL We also don't celebrate the 100th day of school, we celebrate the 90th day because that's our halfway point LOL
We are going to celebrate with a day trip to the beach! All of the crowds should be thinned out by then and we will have lots of room to frolic and play!
Our school year starts as late in August as possible, which works out to about ten days later than the public schools start. I purposely engineer it that way, AND we finish (if everything goes according to plan) on the last weekday OR the last Friday in May (depending on how everything else works out calendar-wise that year). So I suppose my students "celebrate" the first day of public school by sleeping in, or doing whatever else they do at their house, go shopping, have lunch out, whatever. I'm usually at school organizing stuff. This year I'll already have DGS here, getting him "reviewed up" so we can hit the ground running when we actually start classes, which I think will be the 23rd this year. We usually go ahead and start light work on the first day of our school year, talk about which holidays we'll take, talk about their new books, what we each expect to "get" out of this school year, all that sort of stuff. We usually don't start on a Monday, but on a Thursday or even a Friday, so we can kind of ease into it and start for serious on Monday.
