Start the School Year Right With Fun Traditions

Pam Barnhill [00:00:01]:
Are you ready for homeschooling to feel joyful again? Do you long for support as you learn alongside your kids? Welcome to Homeschool Better Together. A podcast about building a homeschool experience that works for your family. I’m Pam Barnhill, and it’s time to step out of the overwhelm and into the wonder. Let’s do this. Hey there, homeschool friends. As summer winds down, our family has a back to school tradition. And I was kind of wondering, does your family have a back to school tradition as well? And if you don’t have a back to homeschool tradition, have you thought about starting 1? Because I happen to think is really important. And that’s what I wanna talk about today.

Pam Barnhill [00:00:54]:
Some of the importance of back to school traditions. And I wanted to tell you a little bit about our own. So for the past 11 years, I think because quite honestly, I’ve lost a little bit of track about how long we’ve been doing this, but I have found pictures all all the way back to 2013. It’s 2024 right now. So if my homeschool mom math is correct, that would be 11 years. Right? Am I right? We have actually gone to the donut shop for our back to school tradition. And I would like to tell you how this started, but I really don’t quite remember. I think it was just something fun that I came up with.

Pam Barnhill [00:01:37]:
I mean, my kids were super excited about a trip to the donut shop 11 years ago. And so I probably just said, Hey, let’s go to the donut shop. Actually, the very first picture I have of us going to the donut shop, our babysitter was with us. And so I was like, Oh, I’ve got a little help today. We’re starting back to school. Let’s go to the donut shop. And that’s probably quite simply how it was born. And then the next year I’m like, Oh, Hey, do you remember we went and got donuts last year? How much fun that was? Let’s go do it again this year.

Pam Barnhill [00:02:08]:
And then we just kept on and on with it. Now it has changed a little bit over the years. When we first started going to the donut shop, we would go and we would go inside and sit down. And so, you know, the kids would, we’d get the drinks, we’d get milk for everybody and we would pick out our donuts and they would wear the little donut shop hats and all of that stuff. Sometime within the past few years, and I really can’t remember how long ago it was, we started getting the donuts and coming home. So they were no longer like super excited to be in the donut shop, watching how the donuts were made and wearing the little donut hats. They were just perfectly happy to go and pick out the ones they wanted because we’re talking about not just plain donuts here. They get to go and they get to pick out the ones they want.

Pam Barnhill [00:02:57]:
I don’t put a limit on the specialty donuts because normally when we go to the donut shop, I’m like, you know, you can’t get the super expensive ones. So I’ll let them get whichever ones they want and we bring them home and we eat them now, but then we always take a picture outside the donut shop. So we’ve started standing by the wall out there and snapping a picture of everyone together. And so my favorite part of the tradition, though I do love donuts, my favorite part of the tradition are the years years of pictures I have watching my kids grow up through the years. And it’s, it’s just such a joy to look back on all of those wonderful pictures of the kids growing up and just having that fond memory of that back to school tradition that we had. So I really love our back to school tradition. It’s really simple. It doesn’t take very long.

Pam Barnhill [00:03:54]:
And in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t cost very much, but it is something we look forward to every single summer. And so I think that’s something to think about is like, what can we do that the kids look forward to right when the school year is starting back? So I want to know from you, do you have a favorite back to school tradition? If you do, I would love to hear what it is. You can come in and talk about it with us in our community, or you can shoot me an email and we’ll put a link to the community in the show notes here for this podcast. So I have to say one of the things that I love most about these back to school traditions are the huge impact that they make on family bonding. It’s something that we all get to go do together. Now, last year was the very first year that Olivia, my senior from 2 years ago I’m still calling her my senior y’all. She’s not a senior anymore. Actually, I’m gonna have a new senior this coming school year.

Pam Barnhill [00:05:04]:
But she graduated 2 years ago. And so last year was the 1st year that she was not part of this tradition, except she was. She was still around. She had not decided to start her further education yet. And so she came with this to the donut shop. I did get a picture with her in the picture and then a picture without her with just the boys as kind of our official back to school picture, because you know, she really has moved on to other things and I just don’t know what I’m going to do next year when I only have one, but I love looking back on those things and they love being there and they love doing that. They love being together. Now, there were 1 or 2 years where I had one child who was particularly reluctant to have their picture taken.

Pam Barnhill [00:05:53]:
And I had, you would think donuts would do it, but I really had to bribe to get my picture and I had to promise not to post it on social media. So it was kind of a small price to pay. And actually now I have to go back and ask permission before I can show you that particular year’s picture. But at this point, I don’t think the kid cares anymore. I think it’ll be fine for me to share that. I will ask permission as I always do with teens, but I think it’ll be fine for me to share. But there was just that year or 2 where the kid didn’t mind going to get the donuts, but the kid did not want to be in the photographs. And so you definitely have to honor that.

Pam Barnhill [00:06:31]:
But for the most part, it was something they really, really looked forward to and it was a fun way to go back to school. You know, especially as they got older and going back to school, giving up their own freedoms, giving up their ability to do all the fun stuff in the summer, giving up to, you know, having the time to do whatever it was they wanted to do. They were giving all of that up, but you know what? A little bit of donuts just made it a little bit sweeter, just made it a little bit better. And so it became something that we looked forward to. So if you’re thinking about starting your own back to school tradition, if you don’t have one, or maybe if you’ve tried to have one before and it hasn’t really worked for you, there are a few things you could do. I’ve got a few tips for you. And the first thing is like, keep it super simple. There are families out there who do bigger back to school traditions, and I say more power to them.

Pam Barnhill [00:07:32]:
But if that’s something you’ve struggled with, you know, I always hear about families doing like the not back to school day, where they wait until everybody else goes back to school and then they go do something really big on that day in spaces that are way less crowded now because all the school families are back in school. I think that’s fabulous. I’m just not sure that that was something that we would keep up. And so starting with something small, like the donuts was something that would absolutely work for us. It also allowed us to actually do school on that day. So we tied the really fun event of doing the donuts. We tied the memory of that to the 1st day of school. So we tied something really pleasurable to something that maybe we weren’t quite looking forward to.

Pam Barnhill [00:08:16]:
And I think that’s one of the reasons also that it made it work. So don’t be afraid to start small. Don’t be afraid to do something simple. Now, if getting your kids out of the house is a problem for you, you’ve maybe got a lot of little kids and just loading everybody up in the car. Just, you know, it’s not something that appeals. You can totally do something there at the house. So maybe there’s a special meal that you make, or you could do some kind of special little gift or something like that on the 1st day of school. And then you don’t even have to leave the house at all.

Pam Barnhill [00:08:52]:
And for some families that would make it way easier for you to do. So definitely keep it simple. And if your family, you’re not big sugar consumers, or you don’t like to eat out, it does not have to be food related. You can actually come up with a back to school tradition that has nothing to do with food. And so then you don’t feel bad about loading your kids up with some sugar or something like that. I will say when the kids were younger, I would make them do the school day first. We would start off with our shorter school day. And just bonus tip for you, we always like to start going back to school on a Wednesday.

Pam Barnhill [00:09:29]:
So that 1st week is super short. And I like back to school is exhausting for me as a homeschool mom. I can remember 1 year just being absolutely worn out at back to school time. And it hit me that, wow, you’re trying to do like a full week of school and it’s exhausting all these extra hours a day that you you haven’t been doing for a few months. And just the newness of routine just makes it so, so tiring. And so by starting on a Wednesday, and then we’re able to kind of roll into a weekend fairly quickly and get a little bit of rest and recuperation there at the beginning of the school year. And then of course, I always like to start with a smaller load. We’re actually starting back to school this year on August 6.

Pam Barnhill [00:10:24]:
So, this’ll be a little bit before you see this. And my son is just, I have one son starting with tutoring on August 6 because he wanted to start the 1st full week of August. The rest of us aren’t ready yet. So I think the week after that, we’re gonna add morning time and home ec. Everybody’s getting a home ec credit this year, and my house is getting clean. I’m just gonna throw that one out there. I have a whole little plan in system in place for that. So we’re gonna start with that the 2nd week, and then we’ll get into more academic subjects, the 3rd week.

Pam Barnhill [00:10:57]:
And we always do that, that kind of rolling start where it takes us a couple of weeks to kindly get up to full speed and and start doing the entire plan. And so the 1st day of school though, is still the 1st day of school. So on August 6th, we will pack everybody up and go get those donuts. And that’s just something that, you know, we want to be sure that we do because it is something that they look forward to, but don’t be afraid to do something different. If you don’t want sugar, if you wanna do it at the end of the school day, instead of the beginning of the school day, all of that is totally fine. You have to make this work for your family and whatever your particular needs are. The other thing I would say is if you do not have homeschool traditions, maybe you came a little later to homeschooling, or it was just something that you never fully got into, involve your kids. I mean, like I said, we just kind of stumbled into our tradition when the kids were little.

Pam Barnhill [00:11:57]:
It was something they enjoy doing, and it was something that totally works. And everybody still enjoys donuts when they’re in high and it was something that totally works. And everybody still enjoys donuts when they’re in high school. But if you have some older kids, let them help you pick out the things like, hey, I would like to celebrate us going back to school. I would like to kind of honor this time and and feel really good about it. What can we do together as a family that we might want to do year after year to make it fun and exciting and something to look forward to and see what ideas they come up with. And they’re gonna absolutely love that. They’re going to love coming up with those ideas and, possibly contributing.

Pam Barnhill [00:12:37]:
And you could even have a family vote. You could have a fun tradition week and try like all of them out before you decide which one’s going to be your tradition. I mean, obviously set some parameters about that. You can’t go to, like, a different theme park every day for a week. This is totally what my kids would try to do, but you can let them help you decide. And then finally, be sure to take pictures. That one is so important because you are gonna want those pictures to look back on through the years as you remember all of your fun homeschooling journey and just comparing, you know, the different heights and the different faces that they made and all the different things that they did and how much they grew. And your homeschool mama heart is gonna be so happy that you did that, especially when you reach the day where you don’t have a student to take to the donut shop on the very first day of school.

Pam Barnhill [00:13:29]:
And just remember, I mean, the best traditions are the ones that bring your family closer together. They’re the ones that create lasting memories, whether that be big or small, whether it involves sugar or something else, just whatever you want to do, some kind of fun activity that maybe you do with dad. I mean, you could certainly wait until dad gets home and involve him in it as well, but do the thing that works for you. And that’s just what’s so important. So thank you so much for joining me on this journey down memory lane. I really hope that our donut tradition inspires you to create your own special memories and special routines that brings a little bit of joy and togetherness to your family. And, hey, for more ideas on creating meaningful family traditions, I would like to invite you to join our community over at Homeschool Better Together. You can find it at pambarnhill.com, and we love to talk about things exactly like this.

Pam Barnhill [00:14:29]:
You can get so many ideas from the mamas there. It’s absolutely free to join, and we would love to have you join us. That’s our show for today. Be sure to follow, subscribe, and leave a review so you never miss out on the wonder of homeschooling better together. To stay connected and learn even more about the homeschooling better together resources and to join our free community, visit hsbtpodcast.com. Until next week, keep stepping out of the overwhelm and into the wonder.