Last week, on Aug. 10, we started our 2015-2016 homeschool year.  We are slowly getting into a routine and gradually implementing the curriculum that I prayerfully and patiently chose for this year.

We started our first day last week with some of the simple and easy new school year traditions we have been doing for several years now.  I really didn't even think my kids appreciated the traditions or took note of them until of few of them asked, "Hey Mom, we're having our cross cake right?" and "We are drawing what we did over the summer on those paper t-shirts right?" So I'm thankful they remember some of our simple, fun ways to ring in the new school year and I'm thankful the traditions are easy enough to prepare since it's the last thing I get ready before the school year starts.


My kids love to bake and decorate our traditional cross cake.  We've been doing this for several years now.  Since our homeschool is named Sacred Heart Academy, we usually decorate the cake with Jesus' Sacred Heart and a "few" sprinkles.


In the morning on the first day, I have the kids draw on their "We've had a Tee-rific Summer" paper t-shirts.  I got the pattern from a teacher resource book, but HERE is a link to a similar t-shirt pattern you can use if you would like.  As they use their creativity and draw pictures and write words about their summer fun, it's always interesting to hear some of the memories they have had over the summer.


I have the t-shirts hanging on a "clothesline" in our hallway to our homeschool room and each year as they hang their current creation up, they look back at their previous drawings that we still have hanging up behind the newer ones.  They giggle at how their artistic talent has changed and improved over the years.  :)


Around this time each summer, we also measure how much everyone has grown since last year.  Wowzer!  They each have grown so much, no wonder they are always hungry! :)  Our son grew about 3 inches, at least!  They like to compare their heights with each passing year.

Another tradition that we do (even the older kids) is write on and color the All About Me sheets.
It's neat to see how their interests have stayed the same or have changed from last year.  I then taped these sheets on their spiral bound notebooks that I am using this year for lesson planning.  More on my new lesson planning routine and our daily schedule in a post later this week...
 

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. 


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. 

We eased back into our homeschool schedule this week trying to implement our 2013-2014 curriculum. It was a busy week, to say the least, as we all adjusted to the school routine and juggling a new "student" in our school who does an A+ job at sleeping, nursing, dirtying her diaper, and being oh so cute!

As in year's past, we started our first day of our 2013-2014 school year making our "Tee-rific T-shirts" .  We talked about all our fun adventures over the summer and our favorite parts of the summer.  Then my children drew and colored on their paper t-shirts about some things that represented their summer fun.  I got my t-shirt copies from the book,  The MAILBOX: Bulletin Boards For Busy Teachers book for Fall, Winter, Spring, Anytime.
Here is 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.
 

Another new school year tradition that we have done for the past several years now is to make and decorate a cross cake.  Since our homeschool is called Sacred Heart Academy we usually use icing to draw Jesus' Sacred Heart in the middle of the cake with the homeschool year on the cake.  Then my kids dump decorate the cake with sprinkles of all colors, their favorite part!  Here's some pics from our cross cake fun this week:

What are some of your new school year traditions, whether you homeschool or not?

Last year I had good intentions to update my hallway bulletin board in my home as the seasons changed, but that never happened.  This year I made another new school year resolution to update our bulletin board and I'm happy to say that I started our homeschool year out with a "We've had  a "Tee-rific" Summer" bulletin board and now as Fall approaches I have changed the board to this:


I found the apple cutouts in a bulletin board book that I have, but you can find any apple coloring page on the internet. I found one here.  Then for the basket, I took light tan paper, cut it into a basket shape, cut slits in the paper so that I could weave the dark brown, construction paper strips in and out of the slits.  Then I took 2 of the strips, stapled them and used that as my basket handle.
The theme of the board  is a title I made up called,  "We love FALL-ing in love with Jesus and school".  Here is a close up shot:

I got the top and bottom leaf patterns from Microsoft Word's Clipart and I just found a leaf image and copied it over and over again to make the pattern above and below the title.  I had my children and a visiting friend write why they love God/Jesus and/or what they liked in school.  Here are some of their apples:

 The blue colorful apple is my 2.5 year olds and my daughter's friend wrote what she said.

I wrote down what my 6 year old daughter narrated to me: " I am thankful for horses and dolphins.  I like riding horses.  I like flowers and I like seals."


I didn't have any pre-cut Fall themed bulletin board borders, so I went on the internet and did a Google search for Fall borders and I found this one from Preschool Printables. (see sample above)  I made several copies of the leaf pattern and cut and stapled them around the board. 

So I am happy to say that I have completed an August and September bulletin board with my children.  Now if I can keep the momentum going, I'll look forward to finding a fun idea for October's board!

 I am linking up with Show Me Your Homeschool Classroom blog hop hosted by Mama to 3 Blessings and "Show Off Your Homeschool" Link Up Party hosted by Melissa at The Joys of Home Educating .

We are blessed to have one large room designated for our classroom in our home.  This photo is the view from the entrance of our classroom.

In one corner of the room is a closet that I have art supplies/manipulatives/resources stored in and an art area.  I won the art table several years ago and we have enjoyed it alot!


Be sure to check out my post from yesterday where I am giving an "UN-birthday" gift to someone by having   a hand-made jewelry giveaway and you can read all about it here.