Roll Call - When are you all starting?

[Dustybug]

Today was our first day!!! We all enjoyed ourselves.

Our special day was planned as follows:
1. Going to Panera for breakfast.
2. Taking photos with these back to school signs.
3. Talk about why we love homeschooling.
4. Do a first day of school booklet. Probably take us more than one day for sure.
5. Do a Treasure Hunt. I just ordered a game (Rory's Story Cubes, movie (Johnny Tremain), and an animal toob from Amazon. Plus I'll put some kind of sweet treat in there as it's a rarity here.
6. I wrote them a special note in their new Common Place books.

I also plan on using these special notes throughout the year in their workboxes.

I use those back to school photo pictures too! I used them last year and have already printed them out to use this year as well.

We school year round and we are currently in our LAST week of school! We are wrapping up LHFHG and Teach Me Joy's Animal Play. We will take 2 weeks off and start our new year after Labor Day. We will do a week of a Zoo unit study and then go to the zoo to kickstart our year, then we'll head into Beyond and another TMJ program for my DS.

[momtofive]

Today, today! (Aug. 13th!)

LOVIN' being back to school with HOD!!!

[davisfam7]

I usually stagger the start dates for my kids. My younger two boys will be doing Resurrection to Reformation and will be starting on Aug. 20th. My older two will be continuing with math and a few other things they do throughout the summer. They will start Biology, Personal Finance and Spanish after Labor Day, and MtMM whenever it gets here. This way I can get the younger two boys into a good schedule and then add in the older two. I do better with adding in a little at a time instead of jumping in with both feet. Since my older kids can be motiviated throughout the year with various things, they usually finish up school at the same time as my younger boys do. We also go out for breakfast on our first day of school. I almost always plan a field/fun trip on the day the PS starts here. This is especially helpful for my youngest, who has a lot of friends in our neighborhood and they all go to PS. This way he forgets that he should be moaning about the fact that his daytime buddies are gone This reminds him that we have many opportunities to do fun and exciting things while they are in school.

[moedertje]

We started today and were off to a GREAT start.....
We did not do any special for first day of school, since we are in the middle of re-modeling and soon moving to our new house!
Well, our special thing for this year, is for the kids to get up at 7 am and start school by 8 am, so we can finish by lunch time and pack, run errands for the "new" house, go see the progress at the new house!!!!

We are doing LHFHG for Kindergarten 3x/ week, Beyond (continuing in unit 13) for 2nd grader 4 x/week and the last 9 units of Preparing and CTC beginning in January for 4th grade 4x/week.

It will be nice to get back into a routine and enjoy the good books we get to dive into with HOD curriculum, thank you Carrie, for making school life so much easier for our family!

[Busymomto5]

Our regular school year starts September 4th, currently we're doing summer school work though (light fun stuff).

[holdinon]

We sort of school year round. However, we did take a "total" break from July 27 till today. We were all happy to get started back, even after such a short break.
I need to update my siggy, but we have RevtoRev, CtC, finishing Bigger/will move to Preparing mid-year, just starting Beyond, and going to do some pieces of Little Hearts with my little guy this year and then do it "for real" the following year.

Sadly, we have never done any of the fun back-to-school stuff you guys are talking about. I guess because we don't really take a long break. But some of you guys' ideas are great! I hope my kids don't find out about this stuff...they would feel cheated .
Angie

[annaz]

We started August 1st....slowly with RTR. I was hoping to go full speed this week, but already had commitments crop up since I made my schedule. Unnerving to say the least! So now I have to adjust my schedule and our off weeks. GASP!

On the other hand, dd LOVES Shakespeare!

[Catherine]

We go year round as well so we're finishing up Bigger Hearts in October with DD1 and we're on Week 4 of LHTH with DD2.

[MelInKansas]

We started last Monday, so now this is our 2nd week. Unit 30 of BLHFHG, Unit 7 of LHFHG, and Unit 4 of LHTH. I didn't do anything special for the start up. My kids, especially my oldest, had been asking for 2 weeks before when we were going to start school again (I had originally planned to start back up the week of August 1st, but that didn't happen because I wasn't ready).

I have reworked my schedule and so far it is going very smoothly. It's amazing how much better things go now that I've thought it through... and decided that my 3YO will get some tablet game time and some video time during school, just to give me peaceful time with my oldest to get her school done. The 3YO actually joins in quite well with my K DD's LHFHG so it's just the BLHFHG, the middle 2 are nothing but trouble if I just expect them to play together.

And..., it's not nearly as hard to do 3 programs at once as I thought! Not that I think the LHTH that I am doing really counts.... totally half speed. She is ready to learn the numbers and letters, but we are going to try to have it take 2 years so she'll be nearly ready for LHFHG when she's done.

[my4sugars]

We are starting the week after Labor Day after a family trip to Tybee Island, GA. We are very excited! I told the kids that our trip will be our end of the summer celebration before we settle into our school routine. Everyone of them thought it was a great idea!

My oldest ds is starting RTR for 6th grade, while my twin dds are finishing up Bigger and moving into Preparing for 4th grade. Our youngest ds will be continuing on with LHTH and using the K options from LHFHG. He and I will also be using FIAR as an excuse to cuddle and read together. I will be pulling activities from there for SS, Science, and Art. Busy year for us, juggling 3 guides with 4 kids.

[snadig]

Hello ladies.

We started last week, our first year with HOD. I was so excited to start....Well our first day I ended in tears....but God is so good He guided us and we ended the week on a good note. It had nothing to do with the work, but everyones attitude. We had a good family talk and what an amazing second day we had. My oldest even likes science!! That is an aswer to pray. Thank you Carrie for your hard work.

We are looking forward to what is coming next each day. It isn't all easy, but a good balance, and we are in a season of character training more than academics. The Lord is caring us through each day.

I feel a sense of relief knowing it is all there and I don't have to write and preread and rearrange things. I can actually keep up with the reading. I actually feel like I am forgetting something, I was always behinde. We seem to have longer days, but I am not to worried about it, they are learning time managment and I am wanting it to be less stressful and more enjoyable. It is only our second week so I am sure things will change as we go along.

We started our first day with Dounut holes. My kids love dounuts and we won't buy them very often. So they were excited to see them when they got up.

Hope eveyone has a great first week.

[Heather4Him]

We're planning to start Rev2Rev on the 20th! We usually go out to breakfast for the first day of school, and then come home and take a few photos before we start.

[creekmama]

We started yesterday! My son and I are doing Bigger at about two-thirds speed, picking up where we left off in May. My little girl and I are picking up where we left off in LHTH and her R & S workbooks and adding RME. We'll start LHFHG at the end of September when Carries' new math plans for that guide are available. We were all happy to get back into our school routine yesterday!

[blessedmama]

We are starting on August 20th. We are ready for some structure again My dd(soon 11) will be doing CtC, ds (9) will be doing Preparing, ds (8) and dd (6) will be working on math and reading skills for about half of the year and then back into HOD guides. My ds (8) finished Beyond last year but is not ready for Bigger quite yet so we are going to work on dictation, reading skills, math, and some odds and ends until he is reading a little better. My dd (6) finished LHFHG last year and is not quite ready for Beyond so we are going to work on reading skills, math, copywork, and some odds and ends until she is reading a little better.

We take the summer off since we live in MN and we need to soak up the sun while we can. I am so excited to start back. I did have a major burn out in May and just did not want to hs anymore so we ended a little earlier than usual. I am still a little burnt out but I know that with God's help and the schedule we have worked out I/we can do it.

Happy homeschooling!

[3musketeers]

Hey from Texas!!!

We are starting on Monday, Monday!!! My youngest guy is now in Beyond and my older two are beginning Res.to Ref.
We will be doing 4 day weeks with co-op classes on Wednesdays. We are all excited to get back after a nice summer off. Looking forward to a new year with HOD!!! This will be year #4 with HOD for us. Love it!!!!

Cindy