August has officially been coined back to homeschool month and there are so many ideas for homeschooling in August. Whether you, too, want to take a gentle approach to starting a new homeschool year, or if you prefer to jump right in to day one of your lesson planner, you can do either that with the suggestions below.
How to Make Back to Homeschool a Special Time
It may shock you to know, but even public and private school systems “coast” into a new school year. While our goal doesn’t have to be keeping up with that system, there are certainly a few lessons we could learn here. For starters, beginning a new homeschool year is a big deal. Not every family chooses to stick with it and sometimes that may be for the best. But if you’re still going strong, that’s worth celebrating – from the start!
One way to do this is to start a back to homeschool tradition tweaked specifically to your family. This could be a number of things from taking a first day of school picture, eating a certain food for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, or even having a party.
Our family always started back to homeschool with a special breakfast (usually at Waffle House or IHOP) and a field trip with friends. Ben generally woke up on the first day of homeschool to a new outfit, some fun new books and “toys” in a new backpack, and we did a traditional “first day of school” photo. It’s still fun for us to look back at those pictures! They often pop up in my “memories” on my phone or Facebook page (so be sure to post them!).
Whatever you choose, you can’t go wrong with including some back to school activities, which I’ll go into more details about below.
Also, don’t try to teach everything on the first day, let alone the first week. Give you and your children a certain grace period for getting into your new homeschool year groove. Here are a few tips from a few veteran homeschoolers, including myself:
- Keep your lessons short and simple.
- Perhaps just do one or two subjects a day for the first week or two.
- Consider starting on any day other than a Monday. Our first day was typically the Tuesday after Labor Day.
- Brainstorm ideas and goals for the year as a family.
- Slowly introduce the homeschool routine.
- Ask for your kids’ ideas and feedback.
Ideas for Homeschooling in August
Back to Homeschool Activity Ideas
How you start your homeschool year can often set the tone for the days, weeks, and months to come. While you can make any necessary changes along the way, it’s important to start on the right foot from the beginning. Again, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all, so you’ll want to cater your routines, curriculum, activities, and so on to your unique family dynamic. Below are several ideas for activities you can do on the first day or during the first week of your new homeschool year:
- Create homeschool ID cards. These will come in handy when businesses and establishments offer an education discount!
- Make your favorite foods or meals as a family. This can be anything from omelets for breakfast for PB&Js for lunch.
- Name your homeschool and pick a mascot.
- Set up and decorate a specific homeschool learning area (if space allots). Even if you’re tight on space, you’d be surprised at what you can do.
- Make gifts to exchange with one another. And while you’re at it, throw a party to exchange them at.
- Start a back to homeschool journal for the year and fill it out every so often throughout the upcoming year.
- Create a back to homeschool scrapbook. Add pictures and prompts of things you do throughout the year.
- Create a vision board for the year. Add any goals, dreams, and desires.
- Take a fun field trip with friends.
August National Days
Keeping in line with previous posts in this series, I want to highlight a few August national days that can help make homeschooling in August fun and exciting.
- Respect for Parents Day (August 1) – how fitting! I assume that teaching children about respect for their parents and others is an ongoing theme for most families. However, this may be a good day to purposefully discuss some rules of respect for your home and homeschool (both for parents and each other), to start your school year off well.
- Coloring Book Day (August 2) – Why not start your own back to homeschool coloring book?! Or just spend the day coloring in coloring books with your kids. They’ll love it!
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Day (August 4) I suppose it’s just common sense that you might bake and eat chocolate chip cookies on this day. But did you know that Amanda Bennett wrote a Cookies Unit Study?
- Sister Day (first Sunday in August) If you have girls (first know that I’m a little bit jealous), do something fun to help them celebrate each other! Maybe a sister photo shoot or a special day out with mom (just the girls).
- Lazy Day (August 10) If you’re already in the midst of your homeschool year, having a lazy day will be a welcome day of fun. What can you do on “lazy” day? Anything! Or nothing at all. Be creative. Ask the kids for ideas. Start with not making the beds. Maybe stay in your jammies and watch movies all day. Order a pizza. And might I also suggest – have a lazy day for you, too, mom!
- Code Talkers Day (August 14) Navajo Code Talkers Day is a day that holds great importance in the history of the U.S. This day recognizes the contributions of Navajo marines during World War II. Spend some time learning about how code talkers helped us win the war and then follow up with watching a movie or documentary on World War II. Your kids might even like to create their own special “code” language.
- Nonprofit Day (August 17) This is a great day to discuss volunteerism with your kids and maybe even find a way to volunteer in your own community!
- World Honey Bee Day (third Saturday in August) Learn all about honey bees!
- Peach Pie Day (August 24) I think what to do on this day is pretty obvious.
- Banana Split Day (August 25) Ditto Peach Pie Day.
- Thoughtful Day (August 28) There are so many ways to help your kids learn more about how to be thoughtful. Make and send a sweet card to grandparents, make a deliver special treats to neighbors, perhaps even ask your kids to come up with thoughtful acts they can perform for each other.
How to Monthly National Days in Your Homeschool
As I mentioned before, using unit studies is my number one suggestion using monthly themes in your homeschool. They are easy to do and often touch base with multiple subjects while giving your kids fun learning experiences. I have linked several pre-written unit studies above, but if you’d like to create your own, here are some quick tips:
- Step one: Choose a specific theme to highlight for the month.
- Step two: Decide how much time you’d like to dedicate each day (or week) to learning about the observance.
- Step three: Locate reliable resources to use for teaching and learning.
- Step four: Write out lesson plans catered to the theme using the resources you’ve found.
- Step five: Have fun implementing your plans!
If you need more help with creating your own unit studies, take a look at my simple unit study planning tutorial.
State Unit Studies
Another fun idea is to combine the study of U.S. states with your monthly studies. I have created a free unit study for each state, and here I’ll list list each state according to the dates they were admitted to the union with a link to each unit study.
Final Thoughts
Even if your homeschool year isn’t starting until September, or later, these are still some great ideas for easing back into it. While making your lesson plans for the new year, be sure to include some of these tips, ideas, and activities to get your homeschool year started with a blast!
What are some traditions you’ve started for each new year in your homeschool? Let me know in the comments below!
