first day of school

First Day of School 2023

I decided to do something different this year, and start the new school year on a Friday, so we could spend a day doing only the fun, first-day-of-school stuff, and not worry about diving into the work until next week. Last night, I made sure the school room was ready to go…I made a few minor changes this year, but for the most part, our setup is the same as it has been:

I also got the Schultüte assembled:

After we look through our materials for the year, pictures are always a priority:

I decided we needed a fun outing to kick things off, so we drove all the way to Livingston, IL (about 40 minutes away) to the Twistee Treat Diner at The Pink Elephant for ice cream cones. It’s on Historic Route 66, and we’ve driven by it every time we’ve gone to Chicago, and I thought the time was finally right to check it out!

Would it even be the first day of school if we didn’t build a Lego set? I decided the Disney Villains Icons set would be a nice bridge from our fairy tale themed summer school…it’s a very clever set, and the girls let me build the Sleeping Beauty part. We’ll just ignore the hard time they gave me over the VHS tape build!

A (poison) apple for the teacher!

Ladybug requested a special dinner from Lilo and Stitch: The Official Cookbook. She really wanted to try the Pelekai Sweet and Sour Pork, and it was excellent! I also made a super decadent, super chocolatey cheesecake for dessert.

I really liked starting the school year this way…it was nice not to have to immediately get started on our actual work! I think we just might do it this way again next year (which will be Ladybug’s last first day of school with me)!

Senior Year!

Today is the first day of Moose’s senior year of high school!

In the interest of full disclosure, I took these photos before band practice last night. He had to be at school at 4:25 this morning because the marching band was playing for one of our local news stations, and it was obviously too dark then to take a decent picture. I’m so excited to see what exciting things are in store for him this year!

First Day of School 2022

Today marks the start of my 15th year as a home educator!

We started the day with the Schultüte, as is our tradition:

I think they were a hit!

And of course I took pictures of my students…it’s still a little hard for me to believe that I’m down to two, and one of them is in her second year of high school!

We did some light schoolwork…religion, math, a read-aloud, and a bit of language arts. We’ll get into the rest of the subjects tomorrow, but the first day of school is mostly about fun, including building a new Lego set. I got something really different this year…an art set of Mickey Mouse, which was the perfect way to bridge summer school and our vacation to the new school year! And since we started school before everybody else, the rest of the children were still here to help!

It was (I think) a really fun build!

Here’s a closer look…I think I may get a second copy of this set for our last day of school, because there are alternate building instructions to make Minnie Mouse, and I would love to have a matching pair!

I think we got the school year off to the right start!

Schultüte 2022

Time for a look at my favorite first day of school tradition…the Schultüte! I enjoyed putting them together even more this year since I’ve been putting so much work into making our German/Austrian heritage a bigger part of our daily lives. I included all of the items you would expect…candies, school supplies, and a few fun things:

I wanted the fun items to reflect our vacation, so I added some Goofy blind bag pins, and some Lego Muppets minifigs:

This is always a fun beginning to the school year!

First Day of Tenth Grade

Ladybug is a sophomore now! She’s especially looking forward to the second of year of the history cycle (the medieval period), and doing more cooking (this year’s cooking theme is The Lord of the Rings).

Off to College

The day I’ve been dreading waiting for is finally here…Turkey and Bunny started college!

I’m not going to lie…I’m relieved that they’re staying local and starting at the community college, and not just for financial reasons…I’m not ready to say good-bye yet!

This is a very exciting step for them, and a new experience for our whole family, and I can’t wait to hear all about it!

First Day of High School, In Person

For the first time in almost 18 months, I dropped Moose off at school this morning!

Even though he’s a sophomore (I can’t believe it!), this is his first year in the high school building. It’s a strange way to experience the (continued) transition to high school, but I’m sure he’s up to the task, and he’s already excited about some of the things he’ll get to do this year!