Getting Started: First days of homeschool activities

We made it! We finished our first “week” of homeschool - only two days, but still!

There’s enough to sort out when getting started, so we’re following the district calendar to begin. I do not doubt we will stray away from it sooner than later, but using an established calendar took one decision off our plate.

The goal of our first two days was to ease into this new thing as gently as possible. Day one was all about getting started, and day two we focused on settling in a little further into our new classroom space.

Our Days

Our school day is broken into two parts. The morning is in my husband’s hands while I work for a solid block. His focus will be on going outdoors, garden, movement, reading our in the wild, field trips - those sorts of things. 

We all break for lunch together, and after lunch I take over for the “academic” part of the day. And art. I worked at an fine art museum in education for seven years before having our first child, and to this day, I still love teaching art above anything else. 

Obviously this is very fluid, and if doing math in the woods becomes a thing they enjoy, I will not stop that from happening just because it was previously part of my half. We are open to any and all outcomes.

Day One

Lesson: School Supply Shopping

I went shopping ahead of our first day and bought some of the basic supplies all three children would need. Anything specialized or specific, I will let them research and buy later on - but I knew there were a few things we’d need to get rolling. 

Keep in mind we have three ages and they are far apart. This is proving challenging at the beginning. I’ve already seen how lovely a multi-age group is, and will be, but the extremely different needs and skill levels is a lot to accommodate in these early days.

I then put together a shopping list for each child, the dollar or cent amount of each item, broke out the cash register and play money, and let them go shopping. Each kid found the item on their list, and then before they could start using it, they had to purchase it: Money math! Our fifth grader had a list with all the true prices-decimals and all. I did not charge her tax, but you could if you have a child ready for that. Our second grader had whole numbers, with two items costing only cents - but adding up to a dollar. She needed help with that part as money has not yet been introduced to her. Our preschooler had two items on his list, and the fifth grader jumped in to help add up his total.

I rang each kid up on the register using the number pad (i.e. a calculator) to check their math. They counted out the correct amount and handed it over.

In non-pandemic times, you could adapt this, or a similar shopping activity, to include a real trip to the store rather than a pretend shop, but in some ways playing store has its advantages since children engage so much better during pretend play.

Once purchased they dived in to organizing their supplies - putting the dividers in their binder, creating a custom cover, etc.

Daily Task: Journaling

One of the items purchased was a journal. Once they put all their new supplies in their cubbies we gathered at the big table to introduce the calendar, discuss the weather, moon phase, and season, and then open our journals to create our first entry. Both of us parents are also keeping a journal each.

The only requirement during journaling is to record the time in the entry. What time? Up to each student. You can measure time by the date, time, moon phase, season, weather, how many eggs were laid by the backyard chickens, or all of the above. Some measures will give a very accurate point in time, and others will be more vague and general, not showing a pattern until several weeks or months go by.

I bought a large pack of new gel pens (fresh new supplies make everything more fun), and put out stickers, collage material, markers, and pencils. Bullet journaling has inspired the idea that a journal can be so much more than a bunch of dear diary style entries.

Lesson Plan: About Me

Our final activity of the day was an “About Me” page for our yearbook and their portfolios. Using the Apple Pages school newsletter template, I customized and edited the page to print with white space for filling in rather than writing over a printed color area (much harder to see and do!), and created an open ended worksheet for each child to complete. They each chose how to record their stats by unit of measure or quality and by drawing or writing.  Totally up to them. Then each completed sheet went into a protective sleeve and into their binder for safe keeping.

And that was that! Our first day on the books. Each child was very proud of their work, and shared it with everyone when they were done.

Day Two

The second day was far less structured and was more around finding our groove. We went over class agreements, took a short tour of the room (they haven’t seen everything I bought ahead of time), and opened a few packages of books and things I had ordered ahead of time. 

Our fifth grader is currently inspired by getting a true “class pet” (rather than re-use the pets we already have), and so I set her off on creating an outline for where we’d go shopping, what we’d name it, and a list of supplies we’d need at the start. We’ll probably keep expanding upon this as we go - incorporating math, gardening (growing food for the pet), research, and more. My main goal? Stretch this one out as far as it’ll run to delay gaining another living thing for as long as we can.

Daily Task: Tray Activities

Our preschooler had his first taste of the Montessori-style trays he’ll be doing throughout the year. I quickly laid out four choices before our afternoon began and he did all four. It occupied him for not nearly enough time, and he’s sporadically napping these days, so his mood varies in the afternoon, but he really enjoyed the few minutes he was on task.

Clockwise from top left: Geoboard, playdough & scissors, toddler puzzle, rainbow stacker and wood stacking puzzle.

We ended our day with some easy watercolor painting and oil pastels (or both!) and started our weekend.

I have tons of planning to get done this weekend. Next week’s focus will be skill review and planning. Our older two have long term projects they want to work on, and we’ll sort out the frequency of the other core subjects, and by week two we’ll be rolling. Right?

Tell me, how long did it take you to find your homeschooling groove? I’ve heard up to a year before you figure it all out, which makes a ton of sense, and since we’ve got three, it’ll be ever-evolving. Right now I’m mostly focused on letting them lead and drive their topics of interest while ensuring we cover the bases so that if they renter public school next fall, they don’t miss too big a beat, but with the pandemic, it feels like all bets are off, all the way around. Interesting times, for sure, and we’re here making the best of it.