Though much of the country already started school in August, I always think of the first day of school to be the day after Labor Day. In fact, there still exist parts of the United States for when that is when school starts. (Somewhere. Not Arizona.)
To celebrate the fact that everyone should be in school as of this week, GeekMom will have a variety of articles about education. Some of our European writers are contributing to the theme as well, so those of us in the United States will get a glimpse into educational systems elsewhere in the world.
For my kids, we’re starting school on Tuesday. Normally we don’t start the homeschooling year this late, but we did a lot of educational activities this summer on our long road trip, which counted toward this year. That helped us stretch out the summer months.
What are you looking forward to this school year? What gripes do you have about financial cuts in your school system? What fun projects are your child’s class taking on? Let us know in the comments. And stay tuned all week for our posts on education!
We start tomorrow! [Insert “Most Wonderful Time of the Year” music in the background]
We’re in North Penn, a district in SE Pennsylvania, and I’m insanely happy that through all the budget cuts NPSD has managed to keep their arts programs.
This year my older daughter starts 3rd grade and is able to join the music programs. She’s interested in Chorus and I can’t wait to sign her up. [She would like everyone to know that she’s interested in the cray fish that they’ll be studying this year as well. 🙂 ]
My younger daughter turns 2 this year, so it’s full time day care for her, but I think we’ll have to come up with “mini-projects” similar to Big Sister’s so she feels involved.
I think it’s going to be a fabulous year!
I have six kids but only two of them are school-age, and I homeschool them. We start today! Yes, today, Labor Day. I know, I know, but my husband has to work anyway, so . . . might as well.
My kiddos are both in 1st grade this year and will be studying for their First Holy Communion (next Spring). That’s the big deal for us this year, and a really big deal across the board for pretty much all Catholics.
We’re also excited about the art class we’re doing this year: cartooning! Woot!
My kids are good readers and we had a special trip to Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago to pick out a couple novels for each of them. I’m proud of them that they picked ones that looked interesting to them, whether or not they looked “easy”.
My feelings about this school year are just that I want to do a great job for my kids and not let them down as their educator (*or* as their mom). They both like to learn, though, so it should be pretty easy. Here’s to a fabulous year!
We start our 5th week of school tomorrow. Progress reports come home this week. Our school system got cuts in the preschool program. We actually got extra teachers in other grades.
BUT we do have higher taxes that go to the school.
And we had our first fundraiser of the year start the second day of school.
We do start tomorrow (in VA) and my youngest begins kindergarten so I will be working more (and hopefully writing more!)
Our county has had major changes to the calendar, cutting 20 days of school which means many holidays and long weekends. I am concerned that they lose valuable learning time, but we do try to supplement at home with activities and “field trips”. Sad that people chose less school over a slight tax raise. One of our schools was destroyed by a tornado in April, so now all funds are going to rebuilding. Fortunately, we have great teachers and admins so the kids do get quality education over quantity 🙂
In the county just below ours they were talking about going to a 4 day school week. I am not sure if they actually went through with it.
Great comments so far, everyone! I’m really excited about this year because we’ll be doing astronomy and geology, which are my favorite sciences. We’re also starting Rosetta Stone Spanish, which I’m doing along with the kids. And we have a weekly standing date with a good friend to do other random educational and fun activities, like stop motion movies!
We’re officially starting our homeschool today. Yay! We take a project-based approach and have several projects going at once. We’re preparing for National Novel Writing Month, working on stop-motion animation, and learning about the ghosts of New England. We hope to take a local “ghost tour” soon!
Funny, we’re doing NaNoWriMo and stop motion animation, too!
We started two weeks ago. I love the start of a new school year! I’m going to supplement the school’s curriculum with some K12 online classes and other online programs.