Today we kicked off the 2025-26 school year, with Chickadee in the eighth grade!!

Every year before the first day, I get my American Girl dolls, who have pride of place on on a bookshelf in our schoolroom, dressed in their school outfits:

And organize the schoolroom as best as I can:

The first order of business was also my favorite back-to-school tradition…Schultüte. It was weird only making one this year!!!

We didn’t start every subject today, but we did accomplish some traditional schoolwork.

And of course Chickadee built a Lego set…she finished the Lego botanical four seasons collection we started on the last day of last school year with the Lucky Bamboo:

I made a special treat for dessert, too. Chickadee and I are having a little book club this year, and we’re reading through the Harry Potter series. She’s reading our original, American books, but I’m reading the British versions that I received as a gift years ago. Right off the bat, I noticed that they mentioned a dessert of “Knickerbocker Glory” in mine, but not in Chickadee’s, which only had mention of chocolate ice cream. So we looked it up, and discovered that the layered dish of vanilla ice cream, strawberry sauce and chopped strawberries, and whipped cream is easy to make, and we did!

This is going to be a very different school year for me, with only one student at home, but I’m looking forward to every new moment!