Homeschool kick-off week: a joy-filled way to start the school year

Oct 3, 2024 | Craft Tutorials | 0 comments

Looking for a way to make the start of the school year something to look forward to? And bring happy memories for years to come? How about a homeschool kick-off week?

We’ve been doing homeschool kick-off weeks in one way or another since our oldest daughter started kindergarten. That year we went to a pick-your-own flower farm on the first day of school, as we had decided to name our homeschool Little Flowers School after Saint Thérèse. The reality was that a trip to the flower farm was a bit stressful with little ones – see the signs in the photo below: “Do not walk in the flower beds” and “Choose carefully. You are required to pay for ALL flowers you pick.” It was not the idyllic day of carefree frolicking in flower fields I envisioned, but we did come home with some pretty bouquets, and the day at the flower farm is still a happy memory. Homeschool kick-off days have gotten better from there, and in this post we share with you some examples of our homeschool kick-off days. 

While our homeschool kick-off weeks are quite different every year, there are three things they tend to have in common:

  • some surprise gifts
  • a slow start (doing just one or two subjects a day – more on that below)
  • fun family together time activities 

We usually base the especially fun days on what we plan to study for social studies or science in the coming year… this way our activities relate to everyone, as we tend to do science and social studies as a whole family.

 

Special Gifts

Our kick-off days start with an idea I borrowed from German teacher at the school where I used to teach. She so kindly wrapped beautiful little gifts to have on each student’s desk on the first day of school. She told me that it is a German tradition for students to be given gifts to start the school year. They are called Schultüte. Her generosity amazed me to do this for so many students! And I’m sure it brought joy to so many students over the years.

Inspired by this, we try to start off our school year with some fun gifts as well. Somehow a beautifully wrapped gift to open brings lots of smiles, even if there might be sadness in summer coming to an end. Rather than just the necessary school supplies, we try to find something special, like pretty pencils with inspirational quotes, or unique pencil cases found at gift shop over the summer. Sometimes we include books and a book journal. For children who are not officially school age, we pick gifts of toys that they might enjoy playing with while the older siblings are doing school work. One year when the big girls needed a real microscope, our little ones received an educational microscope toy.

Here is what our kick off week looked like this year… 

We’ll also share with you some of the curricula we are using this year – we are always grateful for learning about curricula other families love, so we hope our favorites might be helpful to you as well. We have a penchant for a Charlotte Mason approach to learning.

Monday: History Day 

This year we will be studying ancient history, so a brand new DK Eyewitness book about Ancient Greece was sitting by the breakfast table. These books bring history alive, and are so fun to peruse – no one needs to tell a child to pick this up and learn, it just happens!
We then read from Spend the Day in Ancient Greece, which tells the story of a fictional Ancient Greek family and gives numerous craft ideas. We made the first project in the book: an owl made out of clay to represent Athena’s wisdom.
We also started our read aloud from Famous Men of Greece (suggested in the Mater Amabilis curriculum).  The girls did narration and drawings about what they learned in their history notebooks. (History notebooks are so fun, by the way… they give each child a way to express themselves at their own level, whether it be a lengthy written description by a teen or a simple drawing by a preschooler.)
We continued the Greek theme with making Greek salad for lunch and Amygdalota (naturally gluten-free almond flour Greek cookies that symbolizes new beginnings) for dessert. 
ancient greece

Tuesday: French and Music Day

We started our day by cuddling up together and reading from a French children’s book.

The girls then opened some fun gifts – a 3D puzzle of Paris and audio flashcards (a screen-free activity that still allows independent language practice). The 3-D puzzle of Paris turned out to be a hit! It was so fun to put together, and actually provided for hours of (gentle) play in the days to come (as there are little people that can be moved around).

We also took the time to do our Hoffman Academy online piano lessons. (I was at first skeptical of the idea of online piano lessons, but we have now been using Hoffman Academy for years – it teaches not only how to play piano, but incorporates music theory as well, in a very well-thought-out and fun way.)

The highlight of our day was going to a beautiful French cafe for lunch and spending some time playing at a local park with friends. On our drive to the cafe, we listened to the Busy Kids Love Music podcast. (I’m trying to incorporate music history into our curriculum this year without adding in any prep work – this podcast is delightful.)

Wednesday: English Day

The gift for the day was a bookmark making kit and a beautiful newly published book, Because Barbara, about the life of author and illustrator, Barbara Cooney.  (We have at least one budding author and illustrator in our family, so this book was a good inspiration, and everyone loved it!)
I spent time helping each child with their grammar and spelling books. (This year, we are using Catholic Heritage Curricula  for the older girls and The Good and the Beautiful for our Kindergartner.)
The plan was also to make a visit to our local library, but we ended up opting to do this another day as everyone was tired this day. It’s good to flexible and go-with the flow for a joy-filled kick-off week.

Thursday: Math Day

I was able to do a math lesson with each child so that we could get to know the math program. This year, for the first time, our girls are all doing The Good and the Beautiful math – true to its name, it is a visually beautiful program that uses a spiral learning approach.
Our fun activity for math day was really pretty simple… a nature walk where each child gathered nature items of their choice in a little bag, then we came home and thought about how they could relate to math. How many petals are on this flower? Why do flowers have so many seeds? What shapes do you see? How far do you think we walked?…

Friday: Science Day

While we often do our biggest kick-off day on the first day, this year it worked best to do our biggest kick-off day on Friday. My husband takes the day off of work for this day to join us in the fun and add some words of encouragement and special blessing prayers for the start of the school year.
We started the day with pancakes in the shape of bears for breakfast and a gift of pencils with animal erasers… as a little foreshadowing that our special trip would be to the zoo. (Side note: We use our healthy gluten-free cupcake recipe to make the batter for our pancakes. These pancakes are packed with protein for a great start to the day.) 
A trip to the zoo was such a fun way to kick-off our study of biology this year. Below are a few of the many photos we took of the animals. To top off the day, we were able to stop in for some prayer time at church on our way home to thank God for the gift of His creation, and ask God to guide our school year too.

With such a long day at the zoo, we actually waited until the following week to start our science book work. We are using The Good and the Beautiful biology program this year, starting off with mammals. So far I am totally impressed, and the children love the program. I really love how the program has one main teacher guide, and separate (scaffolded) nature journals for each age group. They seem to be spot on for the level of work that seems appropriate for their ages. 

A Slow Start…

You may notice that we only do one or two subjects per day during our kick-off week. I call this a “slow start,” and there are so many reasons I love it:
  • Doing only one subject a day to start gives me time to work one-on-one with each child on each subject, without feeling rushed.
  • As I see how the child connects with the curriculum for each subject, I can better think about how much time each subject might take, and how to weave together a schedule for the year (rather than just guessing at it). Planning a schedule for the year can be overwhelming, nonetheless, so I always try to remember to take it to prayer… with God all things are possible!
  • If there are projects still left undone from the summer (fun things like making photo albums, or not so fun like cleaning out closets), part of the day can be spent wrapping up those things.
  • Doing just one or two subjects a day at the start of the school year provides a more peaceful transition from the freedom of summer to the demands of the school year… both for me as the teacher and for my children.

A few more fun ideas:

Truly, every year is different, so in case it sparks more ideas for you, here are some of our favorite memories from years past:

  • Getting toy boats and sailing them across the neighborhood swimming pool the year we were studying early American history, pretending one end of the pool was Europe and the other end America. (Another benefit of homeschooling… being at the pool while everyone else is at school!)
  • Using couch cushions to make a pretend time machine, then getting in and pretending to blast off to different time periods to get a preview of what we would be learning about in a world history year. Daddy even had the thought to play some time machine sound effects and make a control panel from a cardboard box! Each time we made a stop, there was an activity related to the time period in a different room of the house (an art project, a book to read, music to listen to…).
  • Spending the day seeing monuments in D.C. to kick off the year that civics was our social studies focus, then coming home and trying to make the monuments out of cake and frosting… Is it Cake? style. It was quite a mess on the counter (with frosting, cake, cookies, pretzels, and more… and yes, I had to temporarily give up my “stay away from refined sugar” norm that you see in our blog recipes.) Our girls are still asking if we can please do Is it Cake? again!?
Of course coming up with your own ideas to suit your own family and curriculum for the year is best (and most fun), but we hope these ideas might spark some ideas for you, and add joy to your school year.
May God bless you and your family as you learn and grow together!
P.S. If you are reading this in the middle of the school, you could tuck away the idea for next school year, or maybe do a week like this in the middle of the school year to add a little variety. Kind of like doing a “Just because we can day” (have heard about this great idea from Sarah Mackenzie?) but instead a “Just because we can week!”

Note:  Some links on this page are Amazon Affiliate links.  Sparkles and Sprinkles is a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Other links may or may not be affiliate links.  We provide links because we have found these products or services beneficial, and we think you might too.

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *