After writing about lunch stations and routines to make the school mornings easier – here is the link if you missed it – I thought I should put together something about our back to school plans for this year. Or rather, our NOT back to school plans.
Actually, that’s a misnomer. We are totally getting back into a school groove. It’s just a homeschooled groove.
Over the summer, we moved to a different country for a few year project. Well, a new continent, actually. So we really took the summer off from official learning (other than some parsha learning and project(s) each week and lots of general reading aloud). We unschooled it, I guess. I love the idea of that, but I just don’t trust it enough for now. I do let my kids lead some of the way, but insist on pesky things like grammar and handwriting…
But to get back to the not-back-to-school topic…we’re starting school this week. Today, actually. Here’s a photo of our afternoon. Today, the big boys (K and 3rd this year!) got to arrange their table/desks to their satisfaction. It’s our first time with desks instead of a kitchen table, but we transformed a room into a schoolroom / office, and were given desks with our furniture. They were thrilled, of course. The boys did some work that I knew would be a good start and we eased into our morning routine. While they did that, my littler ones ran around, colored their own “work,” and played with playdough. (Here are some other ideas for keeping the littler ones happily busy.)
The bigger boys did handwriting (to refresh their knowledge), their own grade-level Language Lessons book, some math, and a few other things. We did some Hebrew letter review and started in on Elul in more depth. (Here are the specifics: Secular K and 3rd, Kodesh K and 3rd!)
My bigger boys also got to do some of their bonus activities today. I’ll write more about how I have this year set up so far, but I have some extra activities they can do when they have the time. My 8 year old is a serious Lego builder, so I got a battery powered Ollo robotics kit from Timberdoodle for him. He spent an hour building a dog (to figure out how the super teeny, tiny pieces go together) and then this awesome windmill that works!
My 5 year old is a crafts guy. (He loves Legos, too, but he is unstoppable with a glue stick and scissors. Maybe that’s why he gave himself a haircut right down to the scalp in tufts on Friday?) He spent a little less than an hour making these four collages (billed as something fun to do occasionally). He sat down and wanted to do them all right away. Some things aren’t worth a battle – BEH, we will have plenty more opportunities for his crafting outlets! These were laid out step by step, and came with pre-cut pieces, buttons, and ribbon (another order from Timberdoodle). It was really fun for him, but I don’t know that it’s as fun as doing it all yourself. Although maybe it gave him some ideas, and maybe that’s just my hangup. We’ll see!
So a good day overall. Everyone got things done, everyone was engaged and happy, and we had a good time not being back to school!
