So you homeschool your kids, and you are looking for ways to engage them on the first day back, without pushing them, or you, too hard? Then keep reading for some educational and entertaining suggestions to help you all make the transition as easily as possible.
Homeschool vs. public school differences
The first week of public schooling isn’t quite like any other week of education. This is because there are all sorts of settling in, and administrative activities to do. The kids need to know which classes they are in. Where the location of each session is, and to get to know their new classmates and teachers.
Of course, you don’t actually need much of this when you homeschool the kiddos because they know where they are, and they know each other and you too. So instead you can use this time in a slightly different way.
Getting into the swing of things
The best thing to start with is to create a display like the one at https://www.hyglossproducts.com/back-to-school-activity-2. This one work particularly well for younger kids. As creating images of themselves and other helps them refine their own sense of identity within the school group, which is a good way to start the term.
Another display that is suitable to create at the beginning of term is one with the expectations and class rules. Each child can write them all out, or take a specific one and decorate it. Then it can be used to refer back to later as a behaviour management technique.
It works especially well if the kids have had a chance to contribute to the rule themselves. Then they will be maintaining their own standards, not just the one’s that have been imposed on them.
Recaps and formative learning
Another great use of this first week when you are homeschooling is to do some formative learning in the form of recapping what was studied in the last year.
A good way to do this is to hand out copies of the syllabus for the subject you are working on. Then get the kid to shade the boxes in green, yellow, or red, depending on how much they can remember. Green is for if they feel very confident, yellow for unsure, or red for very unconfident.
Then you can use a peer teach the method to get the kids together and help them raise each box to green. Of course, if there are some things that are coming back as red for everyone, it can help to go over the topic again in a different way. Or allow them to review last year’s notes and create a mind map.
Personal assessment and goal setting
Another activity that many homeschooled children can find helpful in the first week of term is to do some personal assessment work. This means they look at various categories that relate to themselves. Things such as behaviour, effort, social skills, motivation, and the like. They then assess whether they are happy with where they are, or if they could improve some.
Then the idea is to help them write targets to get them from where they are, to where they want to be. You can use the SMART template for this, check out this website for more information: http://choices.scholastic.com/blog/5-tips-teaching-kids-how-set-goals.
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