'Twas the night before school

The first day of school is one of those events that brings great anticipation. Kids get a new teacher, new clothes, new supplies, new friends. But I've been homeschooling since my daughter started Kindergarten 2 years ago, and feel a bit bad that she misses out on the excitement. This year I tried to think of something that could make the first day of school feel more like a first day of school to my kids. So, last sunday night as I was finishing preparations on our school room, I thought "I should just wrap everything up like Christmas! It's always fun to unwrap things." Unfortunately, I only had very cheap leftover Christmas wrapping from last year, and only a bit of it, but I made some piles, wrapped up their new books, and stuffed their backpacks.

The kids thought it was a lot of fun. I think we'll make it a first day of school tradition, but next year I'll be more secretive about the things I'm collecting during the summer for the next year. In addition to workbooks, I had bought bananagrams and some smencils and some new

nonfiction books to go along with what we'll be studying this year, so there were some surprises, and they just had fun. Maybe I'll even do a back to school tree. Hmmmm. That may be too much work. Still, something to think about.

And I think even if you don't homeschool that it might be a fun tradition to start. You could wrap up some cute pencils and slip them in their backpacks as a surprise, or wrap up their food in their lunch box. Maybe you could wrap up their toothbrush or spoon at breakfast. It could always be a funny joke "What will mom wrap up next year?" Maybe I'll do that for birthdays. I can imagine my daughter laughing as she opens her drawer on her birthday only to find her crazy mom has wrapped up all her underwear. HA.