'One More Sleep' until the new school year......

Many moons ago, before having children and starting my business I worked as a primary school teacher.   So even as an adult I have experienced that uneasy feeling of the summer coming to an end and having ‘one more sleep’ before the start of a new school year.   A new class, new challenges and the humongous anticipation of it all!  
Some children seem to take this all in their stride, for others it is not such an exciting or easy prospect and my own children are clear examples of how differently kids can feel at the start of a school year.  With this in mind I started looking for ideas of how to turn this lead up to starting back to school into something very positive and fun for our household.  Aiming for my children (and myself!) to see this time of year as something to look forward to rather than feel anxious about.  

I happened upon an absolutely charming blog Bringing Up Burns documenting one familiy's back to school celebration -  Back To School Eve!  This was exactly what I was looking for – something to make the dawning of a new school year feel very special for our family.  So this year we are starting this new tradition of Back to School Eve in the Davison household and I thought I would share with you my preparations.

Back to School Treats

Im aiming to set up an extra special family meal  (pizza and pasta, to cater for all kids favourites - and of course ice cream!) and have the children's place settings filled with back to school treats.  These will include a good luck card, personalised note book, giant pencil (pencil case) filled with colouring pencils and a satchel shaped lunch bag filled to the brim with stationery goodies.

I must say at this point that the summer hols are an expensive time so this little celebration is not something I can (or want) to spend a lot of money on, so all stationery was bought for £1 or under, the only expensive items are the lunch bags which were a big splurge at £10, but we did need new packed lunch bags and they will be well used over the next school year.

The notebooks cost only 25p and I added a personalised sticker and ribbon to change them up. The giant pencils were from the poundshop, already filled with pencils so only a new label needed to make it all look extra special for the girls.

 Activites

Hoping our celebration meal would help us to talk about the exciting times ahead and our hopes for the next school year I put together this sheet for each of the girls to complete, to get our conversation flowing -

I am aiming for this to be a big part of our tradition, to complete a new sheet each year, and to look back on those from previous years.  If  you would like a copy of this sheet you can download it here Back To School Printable


I am also going to try to get the girls talking about their ideas for the future and complete the question of what they would like to be when they grow up and add it to this printed card.

 

The girls will hold these cards when having their photos taken on the first morning back.  Again I think this will be a lovely memory from each year to see how their future dreams develop, as they grow.

 

I am so ridiculously excited for this celebration meal :) I will try to update to let you know how it all goes.  Now, need to get back to the more mondane back to school tasks, name labels in unform, uniform ironed and PE bags packed - I am determined to be organised well ahead of time this year (famous last words!).