how to plan a terrific first day of homeschool

When I was a young girl, I loved back-to-school time: the new Trapper Keeper, the new pencils, the new, four-colors-in-one ink pen, the new glue sticks. I loved taking my time to decorate and sort through my new school supplies and preparing my new clothes for the first day of school. 

While homeschoolers don't have the typical first day back to school, making the first day of a new grade in homeschool special is a celebration worthy of the name. The following are some things I do to make the first day of homeschool special. 

Prepare
After I purchase the curriculum, I go through it and make a lesson plan that covers the first month. There are some homeschoolers that can plan the entire year out, but, alas, I am not one of those. This year, my daughter is going into the 5th grade, so her list of subjects looks like this: 

• Bible
• Spelling
• English
• Math
• History
• Science
• Civics (the presidential election) 
• Spanish
• Art/Music
• Reading

As I plan the schedule, I divided the subjects like this: 
Monday-Friday

• Bible
• Spelling
• English
• Math
• History
• Science

Monday & Wednesday: Civics and Spanish
Tuesday & Thursday: Art/Music & Reading
On our dry erase board, I've written that Laura needs spiral notebooks for Bible, spelling, English, and math. She needs a spiral notebook and a folder each for Spanish, science, civics, reading, and art/music, and a three-ring binder for history. She decorates each of them based on the subject they will contain. This helps her prepare mentally (and have some fun) as she takes ownership of her school supplies. 

We also prepare the dining room, which is also our homeschool space, to start the new year. We hung a new wall calendar on the wall, refreshed our stash of dry erase markers, and will give the dining table and chairs a good cleaning. The floor will get swept and mopped as well. 

The night before homeschool, once she has showered and gone to bed at a reasonable hour, I lay out the books and supplies on the table. 

Breakfast
It's our tradition to go out for doughnuts for the first day of homeschool, and have our morning basket reading while enjoying breakfast. It's a tradition that we both really enjoy and it's a sweet (pun intended) celebration to start our year. 

The First Day
The first day is always exciting, because books are new, pencils are well-sharpened, and we're back into a schedule. Taking regular breaks, though, can help with restless legs and learning fatigue. Make sure your child can get water and go to the bathroom when they need to -- when we first started homeschooling, Laura would raise her hand to go to the bathroom, but I told her: just get up and go, and come right back. We're homeschooling! We don't have to raise our hands to go to the bathroom. 

At the end of the first day, make sure that the child helps pick up. Have a shelf, basket, or bin that the materials can go in to, if you don't have a dedicated homeschool space. If you do have a dedicated space, pick it up and get it ready for the next day. Be sure kids can run and play and burn off energy. 

Remember, homeschool is more of a learning lifestyle than an education. It's geared to give the whole child opportunities to learn, grow, and become who they are meant to be. Celebrate this time together! And please don't say, "We have to homeschool," like it's the worst thing ever. There's a world of difference between "We have to homeschool," and "We get to homeschool!" Celebrate it! 

Happy Homeschooling! 
Blessings,
Terrie 

(C) 2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Terrie Bentley McKee