Just wondering how everyone decides when their first day of the new school year is going to be. Do you go with your local school's schedule, or do your own thing? I feel like this year it's just blending in with what we have been doing over the summer. Just continuing on . . . It's not like we haven't been doing anything from the summer break and then offically starting again with a "first day." If I came up with a first day, and told Rachel, "Today is our first day of the new school year," she'd look at me like, "Huh, we've been doing this for months. What are we starting up?" lol So, I'm just feeling like there's no clear cut first day for her this year. Unless I consider May as when we started up since we basically took off February, March, and April because we were visiting my family in Feb and didn't do much, then in March/April we were packing/moving from CA to NC/and unpacking. When we started back up, we just started, and never thought about a "first day" since it was May. I had planned to give her a break each summer, but this year I felt like we had already had our "summer break" during the winter/spring, so we just went through the summer to make up for it. Even though she's 4, we're pretty much going to be starting Kindergarten since she's reading K level, and she's ready for K math and can do the K workbooks. I feel kinda sad cause starting Kindergarten should be a big deal, ya know? I'm afraid it will just blend in going from preschool to K. I want it to be special and exciting for her, but not sure how to achieve that. I've thought about taking a 2-3 week break before starting her K stuff, but if I take a break, she'll just end up ASKING for school since she enjoys it so much. Then, it will end up not feeling like a break. Even if I verbally make a big deal about her new big girl K books, she'd just see it as, "Ooooh, more books to work in!" Instead of, "I'm in Kindergarten now." Those of you with older kids, do they recognize when they've gone up a level? Also, I've thought about doing my own version of year round school vs. traditional calendar and taking breaks as our family needs them. Like just taking the whole month of December off, and planting time when it comes time to plant my vegetable garden. Or, whenever a new baby is born. . etc. Or, like this year when we moved.
Elizabeth: Sounds like she a sweet girl and loves school and loves to have fun. Well what I would do is tell her you are taking a break for two weeks so mommy can get new books all together for Kindergarten. If she wants something to do to keep busy then find a few worksheet for her to work on. Then when the time comes for the FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN! Make a big deal, when she gets up have her get dress in a special new outfit, take her picture and then you both can work on making a profile for her to keep all or some of work she did in Kindergarten. Then take the time and show her all the neat books! Make it fun. Maybe for lunch go to McDonalds or her favorite place to eat. Have fun! Good luck keep us posted and let us know how it went.
This is our 4th year. The first year we started was like a party! I had shirts, games, prizes, a million pictures, etc. The next year the tradition continued just a little less stuff. Third year was the same, but I just toned it down more. This year was so sad, lol. My ds started K and it should have been this huge day of fun stuff. I felt like I let him down a little. We still wore our school shirts, took pictures and had a fun snack. The rest was the same old stuff really. I guess after years of doing this the novelty or something wears off. I would suggest taking pictures and maybe making a fun "school theme" snack to make it more memorable!
We've been doing little things all summer and wont officially start school till after labor day but I feel I should make it exciting for her too... Yesterday we started a little unit on apples, she made an apple craft and we made an apple word book with facts about apples in it..she dictated I wrote. It was fun. we dont start till at least the 7th of september, Madison's birthday is the 6th!
I agree with all the ladies, make it fun. She's young and would be really jazzed by this. Sometimes people are in groups that have a schedule but honestly, most people I know do not follow them after a while. Em's is required to cover 180 days of school a year. So we keep a calendar and mark off the days. Sometimes we take a vacation for a couple of weeks and I just double up on her work and add it as an extra day. How we schedule our days is up to us. Sometimes we take a day off for outdoor activities and we still count it as a day because she is still learning. I would suggest at least taking off a few weeks in the summer so the school years do not blend in. Some people work with the year-round schedule and enjoy the between breaks.
We school year round but summer has different stuff than when the other kids are at school. We swith between them when the summer activities in town start and end... Like in the summer our Meusum has a kids activity day on Saturdays and movie day on mondays, Story times and reading contests... all of it tends to start a week after Public school's out and ends the week before Public school starts again. we take time off at Christmas and whenever we feel the need. Yesterday and today are no school because Sami has a cold and I want her to rest more.
We do take a break in the summer form book work. But I see almost everything we do in life as a leason and feel we are always learning. This year we will not be starting til after labor day. Because of other things that are going on in our life. But the last couple of years we have started when ps did. If you feel the need to take a break take a week or two. But you could also plan a party day or something like that. Like a gradation for preschool. Do something fun, go out to eat, buy a small gift to show how proud you are, take pictures, make a certificate And tell her when we start on Monday you will be a kindergardener. Good Luck to you and your new kindergardener.
Thanks for the replies! I never thought of the new outfit and taking pictures. I guess I associated that with leaving the house to go to school. :lol: I was never homeschooled myself, and now that my oldest is finally up there and ready to start something more that preschool work, I guess I just never knew what a first day of the new school year for a homeschooled child "looked" like, kwim? Or, when is the best time to start. (That's why I was wondering how everyone decided on when their first day would be.) When I started preschool stuff, we never had an offical first day. Just opened the books, and got started. I remember how excited I was as a kid when I started K, and moved up grades. I want her to be able to get that too. Thanks for all the great ideas! I'll have to do some thinking and get creative with the suggestions and start planning a little something.
I forgot to say earlier that I usually have our official day somewhere around the official day of school at ps here. I stick to a similar schedule to ps but I tweak it here and there to fit our needs. I only do this because it makes it easy for me. I don't like to count the days as we go...I guess I'm afraid that we'll not have enough or something by the end of our school year. Our county sends attendance forms and you have to tell the start and end date of the school year every year. So, having a schedule helps me all around. Our ps changed to a sort of year round type schedule with a shorter summer break and more breaks during the year. I like this and the summer was only shortened by a few weeks. So, we'll have breaks for October (think fall and pumpkin patches), November (Thanksgiving), December/January(Christmas), February (winter blues holiday), Spring Break in April and I also made 4 day weekends for Labor Day and St. Patrick's Day! I like making up my own calendar.....lots of party days!
Our first day is Monday. My husband is a public high school teacher, and that's when he reports in for the first time (though the kids won't show up until Wednesday). We work according to his schedule. We don't really do anything special for our "first day". I'll probably fix a special breakfast, but that's it!
