1st Day of School

Hurray! Today was our first day of school. Here is what we did...

First, I gave my younger boys their Schultuete's. Inside Nathan and Ryan's cones I placed packs of new pencils, markers, colored pencils, scissors, glue sticks, rulers and erasers. I put all of my older son's school supplies in a small gift bag because he doesn't care about all of the "fuss" and games my younger boys enjoy. His gift bag contained mechanical pencils, extra pencil lead, erasers, pens, highlighters, white board markers, Post-It flags, White Out Correction Tape and a Thumb Drive.

I didn't have time this year to decorate their cones as much as I usually do. However, the boys didn't mind, they just really enjoy the tradition.

After they went through their school supplies and looked through their new school books, I sent Nathan and Ryan on a treasure hunt. This year all of the clues were written in riddles. They had so much fun running around the house searching for the clues that lead to the treasure.

The treasure included a Fingerprinting Kit, Thread Art Craft Kit, Mentos Geyser Tube, Touchable Bubbles, along with a couple of new books (Homer Price, The Great Brain and The Shakespeare Stealer).

After working on a few reading and writing exercises, they spent time playing detective by going around the house "lifting" fingerprints and trying to figure out who they belonged to. They also had fun with the bubbles by putting the wand in front of an air-conditioning vent and watching the bubbles fly around the room, and then run around and try to catch them.

Later the boys went outside to test out the mentos and diet coke experiment. It is one of their all time favorite experiments and they never seem to get tired of it.

Lunch consisted of hotdogs and hamburgers followed by ice cream. After lunch, the boys finished their chores and attended music lessons. Then they spent time playing with their neighborhood friends. It was a busy day, but I think we are off to a great start.

1st day of school traditions

Last year I gave my kids a Schultuete on the first day of school. This is based on a German tradition where parents would give their children a "school cone" filled with school supplies and goodies on the first day of school. Well, my younger kids really enjoyed this and decided that we should do it every year.



Some of the items that I put in their cones last year were: pencils, erasers, glue sticks, scissors, colored pencils, pencil grips and highlighters. I also had a few items that were too large to fit into their cones. So, I created a treasure hunt for them with clues in Morse code. The treasure box contained some moon sand (found on sale at Walgreens), small wooden logic puzzles and a few pre-packaged science experiments (found at a local homeschooling conference). They really had fun that day setting up their school desk, playing with their new treasures and performing science experiments. We topped all of this off with ice cream sundaes.

So, what will go in their Schultuete this year? I'm still working on it, but here is what I have so far:

• Younger boys - fun or special pencils, erasers, glue sticks, scissors (we always seem to loose or break these by the end of the year), colored pencils, markers, pencil grips and highlighters.
• Older son (who doesn't really care for all of the fuss) - mechanical pencils, extra lead, erasers, pens, White-out, highlighters, Post-It notes/flags and a thumb drive (to back up his files and papers).

I haven't decided yet what I'll put in the treasure box, but I know that I'm going to make the treasure hunt more difficult and complex this year. I really want to make it a challenge and it sure makes going back to school more fun.