5 Days of Back to Homeschool -- The Early Years

8 Steps to Prepping for the New {Home} School Year {5 Days of Back to Homeschool – The Early Years}
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First Day of {Home} School Traditions {5 Days of Back to Homeschool – The Early Years}
Homeschooling for First Grade & Under – Avoiding Overload {5 Days of Back to Homeschool – The Early Years}

Weekly calendar with colorful ribbons

If you haven’t already started your school year, here are 8 easy steps to prepping for your next school year.

1. Put away last years curriculum.

First of all, empty the place where you keep your current curriculum, whether that is shelves or drawers. I keep the kids art supplies there, too, so I reorganized and culled that also.

2. Gather books/teachers manuals for the upcoming year.

Gather all the beautiful new (or new to you) materials that you purchased for this year and stack them up. Can you get through all of it? What should you start with and what can be phased in later?

3. Plan for fun – unit studies, holidays, field trips.

Even PS kids don’t spend every school day doing boring stuff. They have assemblies, pep rallies and field trips. So should you. Don’t forget fun unit studies, holiday parties, and field trips. Visit my post on 3 Ways to Fit Fun into Your Home {School} over at Only Passionate Curiosity for more tips on how we add fun to our year.

4. Reserve library books.

Figure out what library books you need for your students. For my little ones, I use this monthly book theme list for tot-PreK-k. For my second grader, there are books to accompany her history curriculum.

5. Print & laminate as necessary.

I have younger kids and use a lot of printable packets & homemade manipulative activities. If you use a lot of these, print, laminate & cut them in batches. It’s easier that way.

6. Plan first day & first week.

Getting your kids excited about the new school year probably gets harder as time goes by, but try to get them excited about it. I shared our first day of school traditions and transition to school earlier this week. I’m pretty excited about the school supply scavenger hunt myself :).

7. Figure out an ideal weekly school plan or checklist.

Come up with a routine or schedule for your day & week. Then try it out. See how it goes over the first month. Too ambitious? Under disciplined? Tweak it until it feels right. Then post it on your fridge :).

8. Plan a not-back-to-school day for first day of public school return.

Figure out when your local school system starts and plan a field trip that day. We have one heck of a field trip planned. I’ll tell you all about it when we get back ;). Any place that has been crowded all summer would be a good bet. Think museums, parks, even waterparks or pools!

Notebooks and pencils