21 Easy Back to School Ideas for Homeschoolers
Need back to school ideas for your homeschool?
Don’t worry, there are plenty of amazing activities you can do and new traditions to create with your child on this special occasion!
Keep reading to learn about 21 fun and easy back to school ideas to do during your first day of homeschool.
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21 Fun Ideas for Your First Day of Homeschool
It’s back to homeschool season and this is a great opportunity to start some traditions and engage in fun and inspiring activities to start the new school year on the right foot!
1. Decorate Your Homeschool Classroom
One of the best back to school ideas is to design and decorate your homeschool working area on the first day of homeschool. In these 17 Beautifully Organized Homeschool Room Ideas on a Budget you’ll find great ideas to keep your working area well-organized as well as beautiful!
2. Pick Your Homeschool Song
The first day of homeschool is all about making your homeschooling experience enjoyable, fun, and relatable for your child. Choosing your homeschool tune is an activity that allows you to have a lot of fun together and set the tone (literally!) for the rest of the year.
3. Take Some Pictures
The first day tradition of taking homeschool pictures is essential for the future when you’re walking down memory lane with your child. Every school year is different, presenting its own set of rewards and challenges, and you can remember these moments by taking some cool or even silly photos!
4. Personalize Your Notebooks
This is one of my favorite activity ideas for the first day of homeschool. Sit down with your child and customize their notebooks in a way that’s attractive for them. If your child likes football, give them the materials to cover them with football pics. If they like princesses or dinosaurs, personalize them accordingly. The most important part of this activity is to do it together!
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5. Go on a Scavenger Hunt
Few activities are as entertaining for children as scavenger hunts. Kids see them like a challenge, but also like a fun game. Start your homeschool year with a scavenger hunt and your child’s motivation and enthusiasm will be sky high when it’s time to work.
Is your child learning Spanish? You might like: 8 Ideas for Your Scavenger Hunt in Spanish
6. All About Me
This is an interesting activity on which children can explore a little bit of their personalities and get to know more about themselves. These “first day of homeschool” printables include sections such as favorite book, favorite animal, and favorite hobbies. If you make this a yearly tradition, it provides a fascinating insight into how your child’s answers evolve over the years. You can download here a free “All about me” printable.
7. Plan Together Your School Year
Organize your schedule, plan your lessons and curriculums in advance, define the field trips you’d like to do, and maybe even plan your vacations. By looking at the whole year from the beginning, you both will get a refreshing perspective of what’s about to start.
8. Use These First Day of Homeschool Printables
There are lots of back to school ideas for printables on the internet, but I found these ones really useful and interesting. There you’ll find a back-to-school checklist, school lunch food labels, and plenty of other useful (and free) printables.
9. Have a Picnic
Speaking of first day traditions, have an annual first-day picnic! Go out to the garden, the local park, or even in the living room. The point is to do something different and fun to keep the mood up and set a tone of excitement for the rest of the year.
10. Choose Extracurricular Activities
The first day of homeschool is the perfect moment to sit down with your child and discuss the different options they have for extracurricular activities. You can also simply book a few trial lessons for the different activities available and leave for another day defining which ones you are choosing.
Curious to learn Spanish? We offer a FREE trial Spanish class for K-12 students! Go here to learn more.
11. Answer a Questionnaire
First day of school questionnaires are commonly used by teachers, to gather information about the likes and dislikes of students. You can ask your child questions such as:
- What was your favorite subject from last year?
- What was your favorite project?
- Which field trip did you like the most/less?
- What would you like to be different this year?
You might like: 21 Creative Journaling Ideas for Kids of Every Age (PreK-12)
12. Make a Homeschool Bucket List
This activity can be a complement to the previous one or do it as an independent activity in itself. Both ways it’s always cool to make a wish and ask for your dream homeschool scenario. “I want to visit the MoMA in New York” or “I want to take Spanish lessons,” any wish is allowed as it’s just a bucket list and a fun way to kick start the year.
13. Go Shopping
If you haven’t done it before, the first day of homeschool is the perfect moment to go shopping together! Hop in the car with your child and go on a school supplies shopping spree. Make sure to get all you need for the new school year: notebooks, planners, journals, even furniture, and digital devices, anything you know you’re going to need this year.
You might like: The Ultimate Homeschool Classroom Supplies List
14. Trace Your Silhouettes
I love doing this activity on the first day of school! Grab some colored chalks, go out and draw your child’s silhouette on your garage floor or even on the sidewalk. Then it’s your turn to be drawn. You can also buy a large roll of craft paper and trace your actual bodies on it!
15. Design Your Homeschool Menu
Sit down and discuss with your child what’s going to be the weekly homeschool menu. Maybe you can try to introduce a “healthy day” and allow your child to choose their favorite food on Fridays.
16. Set Up Your First Aid Kit
I know you may already have all you need for emergencies at home, but by including your child in setting up your own homeschool first aid kit you’ll be educating them about the need of having one and the content that every good first aid kit should have.
If your child is learning Spanish, you could even turn this lesson into a language-oriented one as well!
You might like: Emergency Vocabulary: Your First Aid Kit in Spanish
17. “What Did You Do This Summer?” Activity
This is another of those back to school ideas commonly used by teachers at traditional schools. By asking your child to write about their summer, you make them use their imagination, practice their handwriting, and it serves you to evaluate their grammar and spelling.
18. Design Your Morning Routine
Having a well-defined morning routine is crucial for homeschooling. Involve your child in the design of your morning routine and make sure to follow it for the rest of the year.
You might like: How to Create a Homeschooling Routine or 10 Sample Homeschool Schedules You Can Copy
19. Create a Reading List
The beginning of the year is the perfect moment to create the reading list for the school year. Evaluate your options, discuss them with your child, and put together a smart reading list that both challenges and motivates your child.
20. Make a Time Capsule
This is one of the coolest back to school ideas you’re going to find and you can make it a yearly tradition too. Get a shoe box and ask your child to write a letter to himself and put it inside it. Then grab other interesting items from around the house (that you won’t miss for a year) and fill the box with all these things. Dig a small hole in the garden and leave the box there until the end of the year. Next year, you open the time capsule, have fun reading the letter, and put inside the box the new letter and new stuff.
21. Set Your SMART Goals
Use your first day of homeschool to set your goals for the new school year. Just make sure that your goals are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely). This way, you can keep track of your child’s progress and have clear goals to keep things in perspective.
You might like: 12 Awesome Hacks: How to Meet Your SMART Goals in Spanish
Start the Year in Style With Your Favorite Back to School Ideas
The first day of homeschool is very important to have fun, be organized, and define how you want the new school year to be. Choose your favorite back to school ideas and kickstart the new school year in style!
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