school room

First Day of School 2025

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!

First Day of School 2024

Today we kicked off the 2024-25 school year, Ladybug’s last year in our little homeschool. I organized the school room as best as I could so we could start fresh, but it’s getting increasingly difficult to find room for all of the books (and Lego sets!) in our collection!

As always, there were Schultüte to open first thing:

And pictures to take. Ladybug is in 12th grade this year, and Chickadee is now a junior high student in 7th grade!

We did some work this morning, but not every subject:

I had to run out to the orthodontist with Turkey before he heads back to college, so we stopped for a first day of school treat at Scooter’s…pumpkin spice season has arrived!

And then, as we usually do, we got to work building our Lego set(s). I decided that instead of a larger set, I would get the mini Disney castles we didn’t already have, so we could complete that collection. Even I got to build this year, because I still had the Sleeping Beauty castle I picked up while we were at the Mall of America this summer!

It a lovely little collection, but I don’t know what we’ll do for space if they make more castles…and at the same time, I really hope they do a replica of the castle at Disneyland Paris!

For dinner, I made one of Ladybug’s favorites…pot roast and green beans. And we enjoyed a cinnamon roll cheesecake for dessert.

It was a great kickoff to the new school year!

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)!

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!

First Day of School 2021

Just like that, our 14th year of homeschooling has begun!

Ironically, while the roster of my homeschool has changed dramatically, with Turkey and Bunny starting college next week, and Moose returning to in-person learning later this week after almost 18 months of distance learning here at home, the school room looks pretty much the same as it did last year…this may be the least it has ever changed between school years!

It is pretty strange having only two students, though!

The number of students may have changed, but our traditions didn’t:

And we did have a few guests, which made things feel a little more normal:

I wanted to make our first day of school extra special, so we made lemon-poppyseed waffles and lemon-blueberry sauce for lunch:

And of course we built a Lego set…this time, the Taj Mahal:

Our “Farewell to Summer” dinner had a local theme, so I decided to also go with a theme for our “First Day of School” dinner…Chicago-style hot dogs and Portillo’s chocolate cake for a Windy City theme!

It was a very different first day of school in some ways, but there were also familiar moments, and it was nice to get started while everyone was still at home before they go their separate ways!

The Transformation of the School Room

Since I’m already feeling nostalgic about this being Turkey’s and Bunny’s final year of homeschooling, I thought I’d take a look way back, and see how our school year looked back then in kindergarten and now…it’s undergone quite a transformation! The first few years, we did school in our “extra” bedroom (now Ryan’s office), and the furniture consisted of two bookshelves, a card table and two folding chairs, and a rocking chair for the teacher. That was it, and that was really all we needed when Turkey and Bunny were in the early elementary grades.

Our educational space (technically spaces, I guess), has gone through many iterations, but we’ve been doing school in the “bonus room” (formerly the play room), of our house for many years. We now have eight regular bookshelves, plus four other non-standard ones, five student desks and chairs, a computer desk, and a cubby organizer, plus a recliner for the teacher. And we won’t even get into how many more books (and Lego sets!) we have now!

Of course this doesn’t even take into consideration all the ways we’ve rearranged our current room over the years…and there have been a lot of rearrangements, from the time we had a huge corner sofa until now! What a difference a decade-plus makes!

Ready for the First Day of School?

I’m not going to lie…I’m not really sure that I’m ready for the 2020-21 school year. If I’m totally honest, I’m kind of dreading it for several reasons, and the top reason actually has nothing to do with COVID-19. Instead, I’m apprehensive because it’s Turkey and Bunny’s last year of homeschooling. That’s right…this experiment that we began in 2008 when they started kindergarten is now coming to a close, at least for them. And I’m afraid I’m going to spend the entire school year crying, as each “last time” comes up.

But, our homeschooling experiment is far from over, especially now that Moose is joining us at home while doing distance-learning for at least the first semester of his first year of high school (which, again if I’m honest, is a little scary to me), so one way or another, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be for our most unique and challenging year of homeschooling (which includes two twelfth graders, a 9th grader, an 8th grader, and a 3rd grader) yet!

First, a look at some of the fun we’ve had in the last week of summer vacation, including Lego-building and cookie-baking. We may not have been able to travel this summer, or even do the usual local stuff we would during the summer, but we still managed to have fun experiences!

Tonight was our annual “Farewell to Summer” dinner, this time a mail-order meal from Portillo’s, which mirrors a dinner we had shortly before summer break began.

A summer classic for dessert…root beer floats:

Plus some Frango mints, another little taste of Chicago:

This year’s first-day-of-school outfits are Animal Crossing themed. It’s a good reflection of our summer, and they were pretty easy to get in a time when clothes shopping can be a little challenging.

The school room has been cleaned and organized…it looks pretty much like it did for most of last year, with the keyboard being the most recent (but not really new anymore) addition:

I prepared the schultüte for tomorrow, too:

So that’s pretty much it. We’re as ready as we’ll ever be, and our 13th year of homeschooling begins bright and early tomorrow morning!

The School Mascot

This is our, what…12th year of homeschooling? And we have a school name, and a school room, but we’ve never had a mascot…until now. Meet Hugsy, our school-time penguin pal:

Yes, this is Hugsy of Friends fame. You know…Joey’s bedtime penguin pal. I have wished I could get a Hugsy replica for years. And when I saw that the Friends25 pop-up shop had him in stock, I was ecstatic. But I didn’t think I’d buy him, because he was kind of spendy. But Ryan told me that I’d regret it if I didn’t buy him, and the children said we needed him, so after looking at how much money I had, I figured I could make it work, but only if he had a position of prominence in our family. Albert (and family) is already our pet, so schoolroom mascot seemed like the perfect occupation for Hugsy. And so, there he sits in my (new) chair when I’m not in it…our school-time penguin pal!

Redecorating

At the beginning of the school year, I was…I don’t even know what the right word is. Disappointed? Confused? Relieved? That the school room hadn’t undergone any major changes. It, for the most part, looked the same as it had the year before (and maybe even the year before that!). You have to understand, this is unusual for me, because I’m always moving stuff around, looking for the best possible use of space.

Well, I lasted exactly two weeks into the 2019-20 school year before I made a major change. Really, it all started because I was desperate for more seating downstairs in our living room, so I moved the over-sized red chair that was my seat in the the school room, and that, of course, was the beginning of trouble.

In the end, you might notice four major differences in the school room. The new recliner (the first brand-new, just-for-me, chair I’ve ever had!), is maybe the most noticeable. If it’s not, the curtains I purchased to replace the old ones, which were hand-me-downs from our kitchen years ago, probably catch the eye first. But there’s also a new lamp, something I’ve been meaning to add to our school room for years, and a signed picture of Rick Steves, which was sent to us as a recognition of our summer school this year from his company.

So. it took a few weeks, but I finally made some noticeable changes. And they’re improvements to our learning space that I really like, and hope will make our educational endeavors even more successful!

2019-20 School Year–Week Four

Honestly, the busier our weekends are, the more exhausting the school week is…and last weekend was very busy! We went to the St. Louis Science Center on Friday night, where we learned a bit about biology as it relates to Pokémon…that was a lot of fun! And on Saturday, we spent the day at an air show, where not only did we get to see groups like the Aeroshell Aerodynamic Team and the Blue Angels perform, but also the Red Arrows, all the way from England on their tour of the US and Canada! That was a complete thrill…it’s something I’ve wanted to experience pretty much forever!

So, it was once again hard to get to work on Monday, but as always, we persevered. Turkey and Bunny used trigonometric ratios to determine the lengths of sides of triangles in pre-calculus. They studied the derivatives of equations in physics. In health, they learned about mental illnesses. They also both started their choir season, and are looking forward to singing some new pieces, and having a few special performances!

Ladybug worked with radicals in pre-algebra…she was thrilled, and I had some flashbacks to the last time I taught seventh-grade math. In history, she read about the Mayflower, and also the founding of New Amsterdam (and how it became New York!). She finished her second chapter in science, which focused a lot on using the scientific method. We’re both continuing to enjoy her study of the The Hobbit…and even though I have read it before (and taught its literature study), a lot of it seems new to me!

Chickadee spent a lot of time practicing her subtraction facts in math. We got to read my second-favorite chapter of Little House in the Big Woods…the one about the dance at Grandpa’s. In science, she read about solar eclipses, and she was excited that she’s had the chance to see one. She also enjoyed learning about New Amsterdam in history…I couldn’t believe how much of the information she retained over the course of the week!

And time for a school room update. Two weeks ago, I mentioned that I did some rearranging…it’s finally complete, so here’s a look at the updated portion of the room, including my very own, brand-new, teacher recliner!

We have a fairly relaxed weekend planned, and I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to not setting an alarm tomorrow after so many busy weekends in a row! We’ve done some amazing things, and had a great time, but I need to just chill!