Usually, back to school themes have to do with apples, fall, leaves, getting to know new friends, and many other traditional topics.

We homeschool, and it’s just now changing to cooler temps. We often do not back to school, celebrating the freedom of staying home.

For our Back to School theme, we let our library story time do our activity for us.

Convenient and I didn’t have to think or clean up anything! Bonus.

Our new storybook lady this year is pretty awesome. That makes all the difference in the world! And she loves kids. She spends so much time on the lessons and provides great experiential learning every Wednesday for about an hour.

My girls are the oldest kids there and they usually help clean up the crafts. Without being asked. Love them.

They like front row seating.

The books for this session were fun. Great illustrations and animals!

I’d never heard of some of these book selections. They’re just great! Always fun to meet new book friends.

These are some of our absolute favorites. Oh, the giggles when she read them.

The storytime activity for the kids was to make little books of their very own.

The kids were provided little booklets with colored cardstock covers and white pages inside. Pictures from magazines were already cut out and the kids could choose them to glue into their books to make collages.

Tori made a butterfly book. She wrote a title on her cover.

Tori also drew butterflies in addition to pasting pictures.

Kate made a book of her favorite animals. Kate wrote the names of all her favorite animals under their pictures.

Alex made a transportation book. He really, really loved this activity.

And we all got cool bookmarks!

Back to School Ideas:

• Night before school party
• Special breakfast
• Pictures to commemorate the new year
• Memory board or interview page
• Gifts or treats
• Look through new school materials and books together to get familiar.
• Set up a work area for each child to complete assignments.
• Special back to school books. It’s hard to find books celebrating homeschool.
• New clothes fashion show. It could be new loungewear or pajamas!
• Schultüte – traditional school cones for 1st graders in Germany. Another Schulüte DIY idea here. DIY auf Deutsch hier.
• Ice cream!
• Chalk drawings in the driveway or sidewalk
• Fresh flowers, especially roses for new schoolers! I love the Waldorf rose ceremony.
• Discuss plans, desires, and dreams for the year
• Make calm jars with glitter, oil, food coloring, and water.
• Make tie-dye shirts or bags.
• Go hiking or do a nature scavenger hunt.
• Picnic lunch
• Bowling
• Parties with a fun theme, even if it’s just immediate family
• Movie night

Books:

• Dinosaur vs. the Library by Bob Shea
• The Library Dragon by Carmen Agra Deedy
• Read It, Don’t Eat It! by Ian Shoenherr
• Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen
• Homer, the Library Cat by Reeve Lindbergh
• Book! Book! Book! by Deborah Bruss
• Wild About Books by Judy Sierra
• It’s a Little Book by Lane Smith

How do you celebrate back to school?