Littles Learning Link Up: Happy NOT First Day of School

 Each month you will find:

• A seasonal round-up (usually toward the beginning of the month)
• Posts where I share what I have been up to with my early elementary children (including occasional highlight posts where I share how we used ideas that have been linked up here on Littles Learning Link Up).

Each week, I will host a link up, where you can share either what you have been up to recently, or old posts that may go with the theme.  Feel free to link up more than one post.

Each week I will continue to feature a couple of posts from those that have been linked up. 

I hope you will continue to share your wonderful posts, and I hope you will find something new to try with your child(ren).

It would be great for everyone to stop by and visit the other linked-up posts as well. Check them out, leave some comments, pin those that interest you. Let's make this a real party and socialize with each other.

What have we been up to?

This is our last week of break before starting our new school year. Our first day of school is next Monday. We don't really do anything for Labor Day anyway, so I figured we might as well make it special with First-Day-of-School traditions. We have quite the line-up of traditions, such as breakfast with daddy, homeschool elf, "About Me" pages, and school pictures. This year we started a new tradition which the children really seemed to enjoy. On the day when the local school goes back, which was August 22nd, we had a "Happy NOT First Day of School" day. I'd love to share this new tradition with you.

Here is the sign that welcomed them downstairs.

Plus our traditional banner in the archway between the living room and the dining room.

I had breakfast all set up, except for the special surprise.

Here is a look at our schedule.

They were thrilled to learn they all got to play a video game. Usually they each have a day where they play 30 minutes, and they have a day they share with a sibling where they both get to play 20 minutes (unless they play together then they get 25 total). On this special day, they all got to play for 20 minutes.

Yes, they were excited. But first they had to eat and do chores.

Boy were they excited to see the special treat daddy had bought them. Little did they know there were also donuts for dessert after lunch.

Yummy apple fritters. And yes, I know they were yummy. Hubby bought me donuts too, so I went off plan. Pretty badly.

After playing their video games, it was time for "Don't Pin the Child on the Bus!." This is a fun twist on "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" that I came up with that morning.

I printed out a school bus and glued it to a couple of sheets of paper I taped together. The school bus took up quite a bit of one sheet of paper.

I cut out oval pieces of card stock and had the children draw their own child on theirs.

The goal of the game is to be the one who tapes their child furthest away from the school bus, but still mostly on the paper. If the child is on the school bus, they are automatically out. If they are completely off the paper, they are also out (unless all the children are off the paper, then we would measure). The winner got to be the first one to pick a show to watch.

We actually played four times, once before each show watched. Usually one child gets to pick a show. On this special day, they all got to pick a show.

See the funny results of each round:

The children loved this game!

And then after lunch they played board games for a while, then they did whatever they wanted to, within reason of course. And we had a movie after dinner.

Our "Happy NOT First Day of School" day was quite the hit. I think we have found another annual tradition.

Let's take a look at that review schedule real quick:

A couple of weeks ago I shared my review for the Paddington Lit Study from Branch Out World. Next week you will find my review for GrammarPlanet and Reading Eggs/MathSeeds. Later in September I will share my review of PictaDicta from Roman Roads Media, two Kingdom Files books from Barbour Publishing, the Captain Sun book, and the math website called I Know It.

Now onto:

Littles Learning Link Up Features

On my last Littles Learning Link Up post, there was 1 wonderful post linked up. I'm wondering if there was some confusion due to the two linkies last week. If so, I am sorry for any confusion. I thought it was a good idea to do my Littles Learning Link Up with the 5 Days of Homeschool Encouragement blog hop. Anyhow, I will be featuring the one post that was linked up last week.

Please, don't forget to stop by other posts that are linked up. See what catches your eye, stop by, pin the post to a relevant board, and perhaps leave a comment to let the author of the blog know you have been by for a visit. I know I appreciate others commenting and letting me know they have read my posts, so I am sure others do too.

This week's featured post is:

Brandy from The Barefoot Mom shared How to Teach Science Without a Curriculum.

Join the Party!

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your young children? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on one of my relevant boards, and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up.

Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our school time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your child, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Monday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

No button currently, and there won't be one until I can figure it out seeing as Photobucket has changed things. Feel free to still share the picture in place of the button. Just link it to my Littles Learning Link Up permalink please.

I am sharing over at

An InLinkz Link-up