7 Quick Takes: Another (Home) School Year Begins with Traditions!

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So we almost completed our first week of our new homeschool year trying to gradually implement our 2014-2015 curriculum.   1 week down, 35 more to go! But, who's counting?!!? :)  

For the past 4 years, we start the first day of the new school year making our "Tee-rific" summer t-shirts as in previous years.   We talk about some of the fun things we did over the summer and our Disney trip was mentioned, as well as our beach and pool visits, and our recent trip up north for my nephew's baptism.  Then the kids draw pictures or write about their summer fun and we hang them in our hallway on the "clothesline". We all enjoy looking at past summer t-shirt designs that are hanging behind the current year.  My older children enjoy this tradition as much as my younger ones.   
I got my t-shirt copies from the book,  The MAILBOX: Bulletin Boards For Busy Teachers book for Fall, Winter, Spring, Anytime.
I found a link to a free t-shirt printout that is similar to The Mailbox version that I used:  Click here for the printable t-shirt.

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My kids also fill out this All About Me sheet that I  glue to the front of their folders that holds all their lesson plans.  My older kids enjoy doing this simple, but fun activity too and it's neat to see how their interests change or stay the same year to year as they fill out this sheet about themselves. 

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Another tradition our family looks forward to each year is baking and decorating our annual cross cake to add to the many other cakes we have decorated through the years.  The heart and cross in the middle represents "Sacred Heart Academy Homeschool, the name of our family's school.  My youngest is not in the picture because it was so very late before we got the cake out of the oven and decorated it and the baby was in bed already.  The chocolate cake was made with the recipe from the Hershey's Cocoa can (and it is an easy and very delicious cake) and then we made our yummy homemade cream cheese icing and sprinkled it with just a few sprinkles. 

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We also took first day photos using one of the free printables HERE.  I can't say I've done this tradition every year, but I do it when I remember it.  Our oldest is in 9th grade now so I also took one with her by herself to mark the beginning of her high school years. 

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This isn't a tradition, but I wanted to share some of the chalk art my son drew this week with his friend that lives next door.  Its design is creative and I'm not really sure what it is, but I just love the colors, imagination AND it's what they created WITHOUT sitting in front of a computer screen!!!! 

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It's very traditional and common in our homeschool classroom to have a table (and sometimes a floor) that looks like this with papers scattered everywhere.   :)

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With all our new school year traditions, I have to say that another fun tradition is documenting when our little one started walking and she is so proud of herself!  I realized after I downloaded this photo that it looks like she is missing part of her right leg from the angle that I took the picture, but she does in fact have both legs and she is about to go one speed with them...FAST!

So after our first week of homeschooling for the 2014-2015 year, everything ran JUST as planned, all my kids LOVE all the curriculum they are using after many, many, many hours of praying, thinking and planning, and there were NO tears, complaining, disobedience and frustrations in the past 5 days....WAIT! That's the neighbor or the blog next door maybe, but not here.  Overall, it was a fast and fun first week of school, BUT everything did NOT go as planned and there was grumbling from the Cupcake corner and Mommy had her moments too!  But, each day is a new day to make things better right?  Have a great weekend and Happy Feast of the Assumption!  

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