How We Do "Not Back to School" ~ Easing Into It!

This month's topic for the Canadian Homeschooling Bloggers Team is to share what we do for our "not back to school" or how we kick off the new homeschool year. 

Over the last 10 years that I have homeschooled my children, we have always eased slowly into the new homeschool year. We focus on the main subjects at first, Math and Language Arts, and each week or two, add more to our routine. 
We all liked mixing getting back to our routine with many fun afternoons with friends or on our own. 

Now that it is only Celeste homeschooling, we continue the same "method" of easing back slowly into it. Spending time at our beautiful Prince Edward Island beaches is a favourite for Celeste so we try to take advantage of nice beach weather as much and as long as possible. We also make sure to start routines that we love, like Poetry Tea Time! 

Poetry Tea Time ~ September 2014

I decided to look back in my archives for blog posts I wrote in the past for "not back to school", especially when all 3 children were homeschooled. I have added two snippets from "not back to school" posts. I enjoyed reading these again and I hope you will too! 


Adrienne and Clara, September 2008
[September 3, 2008] First day back to a routine...somewhat:

I had planned to take this week very slowly, easing back into our home school routine. The start date was supposed to be yesterday, but we ended up helping out my cousin by looking after her two adorable little girls for the day (my kids were so pleased to have another day off, lol). Today, Daddy was home, so I knew school work would be minimal and a big bushel of local Roma tomatoes was also ready to prepare for sauce.

Now that the day is done, the tomato sauce is cooling off before going in the freezer in the morning, the children are sound asleep for the night, and Daddy is watching TV downstairs...I can look back and see that we had a productive day. Earlier...I wasn't so sure!

Adrienne (11) started her business math by choosing a name and creating a logo for her pet store. She also completed the first lesson in her Growing with Grammar. We read the introduction to the History Odyssey and organized the binder. Andre (9) worked on the clock unit by Math Mammoth, read 2 chapters from the Railway Children and answered the questions. Even Celeste (4) did her calendar work this morning! We also practiced the alphabet song and her letters. She had never showed any interest in letters before, so we are starting from the very beginning!

Considering that my hands were busy for most of the morning processing tomatoes, either peeling them or getting the seeds out or squeezing the extra juice out....I am amazed we managed to get anything done!

Fun at the Park: Celeste (6), Andre (11), Adrienne (13), September 2010

[September 9, 2010] Our not-back-to-school day:

Yesterday, Wednesday, was our "not-back-to-school" day.

We already had started back to our school work in August, but we usually like to do something fun on the day that the public school children go back.

The official back to school day for the children around here was Tuesday, but for us Tuesday and Monday were days spent in sadness, in a funeral home grieving the death of Babi, who was my husband's grandmother and legal guardian from the time he was five years old. She was my children's great-grandma and a big part of our lives.

One of my friends here pointed out that the "not-back-to-school day" could be called "freedom day", and I agree completely with her. With homeschooling, we have great freedom. We have the freedom to choose when we do "school work" and when we don't. We can choose what schedule to follow, we learn all the time and we have been back to our school work since the beginning of August, just because that is what works for us.

Yesterday, my kids enjoyed a super-relaxing day, playing video games, playing tennis and visiting the playground. We are also taking the rest of this week off, to play, talk and relax. The school work can wait. I have had the chance to appreciate the flexibility of homeschooling for positive events like vacations and such, but I now realize that in time of grief and sadness homeschooling offers wonderful flexibility and freedom as well.

How do you celebrate your "not back to school"? Check out this link at The Canadian Homeschooler to read the answer to that question from other Canadian homeschoolers!