The first week back to homeschool sets the tone for the rest of the school year. Fortunately, enthusiasm and excitement naturally accompany the first days of school! We only have to capitalize on that excitement with first-week homeschool activities!
I wrote a previous post about activities for the first day back to homeschool. Many of those activities extend into the first week, the first month, and maybe all year! Rather than repeat myself here, I encourage you to read that post and include some of those activities in your first week back to homeschool.
My Favorite First Week Activities
In this post, I want to share with you my favorite activities to do during the first week back to homeschool. I repeat these activities every year because they are so special. They bring tradition to each school year and result in beautiful keepsakes.
A Time Capsule
A time capsule collects current information and creativity from your children. It creates anticipation as you look forward to the end of the school year when you will open it together. It also nods to the current school year by allowing your children to think through what they want to learn and experience this year.
Materials Needed:
- An enclosed container: Old Fashioned Oats (pictured), plastic gallon ice cream bucket, small briefcase, small safe, hard-sided pencil box with lock, etc…
- Mod Podge glue
- Foam paint brush
- Construction or scrapbook paper
- Magazine cutouts or pictures printed from the internet
- Sharpie markers
Process:
- Wrap the container in solid paper painting the Mod Podge glue over top of it. Allow the paper to dry.
- Next, choose pictures from magazines or printed from the internet. Place them on the solid paper and paint over them with the Mod Podge allowing them to dry in place.
- Alternatively, draw pictures with sharpie markers on the colored paper before Mod Podging it onto the container.
Fillers:
- All About Me Page
- First-day picture
- Yarn measured to the height of each child
- Letter to your future self
- A favorite object
- Traced and cut out hand and foot
An All About Me Page and First-Week Picture
Filling out an All About Me page creates a personalized snapshot of each child in the current moment. I love to include this in the Time Capsule and open it at the end of the year. Children love to read about themselves from the past! Sometimes their likes have changed, or their handwriting improved, but mostly they love remembering what they wrote.
A first-week picture portrait page provides a nice place to mount their first-day school picture and gives children the opportunity to draw themselves in a portrait as well. I like to include this paper in the Time Capsule also. During the last week of school, they repeat a picture and portrait and compare them!
You can download the All About Me page and the First Week Picture Portrait page for FREE by clicking HERE.
A Self Portrait
I guide students in creating a more formal self-portrait and it never fails to impress.
Materials
- A large piece of drawing paper or multi-media paper
- Scrapbook or construction paper
- Drawing Pencils
- Colored pencils, markers, or watercolors (depending on what medium you choose)
- A mirror
- A whiteboard or scrap paper to practice drawing.
- Optional: Textured elements like yarn (for hair), buttons (for shirts), fabric (for shirts), etc.
Process
- Show children how to make a face shape. They can look in a mirror to see the shape of their face. Guide them in drawing the shape on their paper. Alternatively, you can draw the shape for them.
- Draw two lines extending from the face and curving to create a neck and shoulders.
- Draw the facial features eyes, eyebrows, nose, lips, ears (if not hidden by hair), and hair. Children need instruction on basic eye, nose, ear, and lip shapes. Look in the mirror and practice on a whiteboard or scrap paper.
- Color the face, neck, eyes, and hair.
- Cut out a piece of paper to be the shirt, or simply color it.
These activities, repeated each year, bring tradition and solidify memories for the school year. Try these during your first week back to homeschool or try out your own memory-making activities!