5th Annual NOT Back To School Day - Just Another Day

As I sit with my coffee, I began to hear the ever identifiable squeaking of brakes as the school buses make their way to the elementary school just around the corner from us. As I sit I am grateful that KM is sleeping soundly in her room, instead of being two hours into her 10th grade school year already - ignoring the fact that she began 10th grade months ago.

Usually we go out to breakfast, head to the library or the beach and have a mellow day doing whatever we like and going places we have avoided through the summer to celebrate NOT going back to school. This year feels a bit different, schools in our area are all going back at different times and I just don't feel like putting anymore importance on this day than need be... for us it is just the same as any other day. We also didn't really avoid anywhere this summer or at least not intentionally, there were some places that I thought of going but simply said no I think it will be better in the fall. I didn't think about less crowds, but mostly the weather as we have had an unusually humid summer. So I have decided to let KM sleep as long as she wants, she can meander out as she usually does to do her lessons and whatever else she likes --- as she would any other day!

I feel like this is bringing me one step farther from the plugged in mindset and continuing my constant battle to disconnect and break the tape in my mind that says school is normal. I know that it is NOT normal, but giving any extra credence to a day when "everyone else" must get back on that big yellow bus, feels like I am validating it in some way.

Now I am not saying that I won't attend any Not Back to School events locally, but not today! Today is just another ordinary day in our home! 

4th Annual NOT Back to school Day

I tried and tried again to plan a Not Back to School Celebration for our local home ed community, but the weather would just not cooperate! So KM and I decided to go back to our roots and do what we usually do for NOT back to school - breakfast, library and whatever we please!

After the third round of buses rolled by the house this morning, I decided to wake up K, so we could head out to breakfast with CJ. While we waited for our food we played hockey with the twisted straw wrappers and the plastic ad holder.

 Then we headed to the library and and came out with a bagful of books!

 KM spent some time chatting and playing on line with some friends and then

 we decided to bust out the hair dye!!!

While it processed we watched Cyberbully - a MUST see for all teens and parents - on the new monitor! 

It is rather difficult to get the colors to show while it is still damp, I will have to try for a better shot. There are two shades of green - a torquois and a GREEN and purple which is more easily seen! 

What did you do on your NOT back to school day?

NOT Back to School Day - TAKE ONE!!!

We had planned a NOT Back to School Beach Day for a large group of home learners in our area, but unfortunately we had to postpone it because of Hurricane Irene power outage related issues. We are hoping that it will be able to run later this week, but today we got to take an adventure to a new spot that we have tried to go several times, Ellisville Harbor in Plymouth. We brought a few friends along and ran into some more as well!

It was a really nice relaxing day. The kids climbed on rocks, hunted crabs, relaxed after their lunch and I got to take some interesting photos!

Ironically we had to reschedule our day and our local schools are all had to do the same as well - they won't be going back until next week as they are all in outage zones! 

NOT Back to School Planning

I was in a big buy store today picking up pet food and some other things and I was so disturbed by the parents shouting at children, juggling school supplies and seeing the children agonizing over the choices that the parents were presenting to them, that it seriously turned my stomach into knots. Each year with all the craziness going on as mainstream schools are starting back up  I appreciate more and MORE that we are NOT going back to school!

In fact we are planning an incredible NOT Back to School Beach Day for area home learning families to meet up with us to celebrate the day that our local school will be back in session! This is the first beach day we have done for this, but in the past we have celebrated with things like a Park Day, Bowling Party, and Family Hikes. This is a great way to get new home ed families together with veterans and to meet back up with friends who may have been busy over the summer! If you don't have a large home ed community around you, you can also have your own "Not Back to School Day" by enjoying things that you have been avoiding all summer, here are some posts of how we have celebrated in the past.

Does your family do anything fun to celebrate NOT going back to school?

Not Back to School Day - 2010

Every year, since we have been homeschooling, we have celebrated the day that our local public school goes back by doing anti-school things! KM usually plans the day out and I get to tag along. So today was the day and she decided to -

1. Sleep in...
2. Play some games...
3. Go out to lunch...


4. Go to the movies...


5. Watch the smurfs...

Do you do anything special for your "Not Back To School Day"?

Not-Back-To-School Day - 2009

All of our local public school counterparts headed back to school this morning and we spent the day enjoying some of our favorite things about homeschooling..here is what we did on our NOT-Back-to-School Day!

Got up REALLY early for us - 6:15a so that we could go to Friendly's for breakfast with CJ before he headed out to work.

We came back to the house and KM practiced piano until The Littles got here!

After SC ate her breakfast, jammed on the guitar for a bit....

and KM did her chores we spent some time playing sports on the Wii!

SC wanted her nails painted and KM was happy to accommodate her!

Then went out to enjoy some sunshine!



We went for a silly ride to pick up lunch!


After lunch naps were had by all!

All and all it was a great, relaxing, enjoyable day!!!

How do you celebrate Not-Back-To-School Day?

1st Annual Not Back to School Day!

Living less than a minute from the school that KM used to attend makes it rather difficult to ignore the fact that PS kids are back to school today! We woke up this morning to the sound of the screaming kids on the buses as they rode by. I half expected her to get upset about it, but instead she was very excited as she knew I had a full day planned for us!

SC arrived right on time and we headed out to KM's favorite restaurant for tie-dyed pancakes!

SC has started to figure out what to do with crayons - so that was fun for her! Even when we are trying to not learn something we do!We then headed over to the library to get some videos!

They love the rocking chairs!

And of course the puppet show was a must!

Next we headed to the park! Down the slides...
And up on the swings:

We headed over to the field for some ball play...

and found a shady spot for a snack!
We then headed home for a nap...
lunch and some video games!
When SC went home for the day I realized I had forgotten that I was suppose to make a stop while we were out this morning so off we went again...when we got back CJ was shocked to see his little girl looked soooo grown up!!
In case you can't tell from the earlier photos, KM had about 4-6 inches cut off her hair!!! We were walking passed a salon when I realized it had been quite a while since we had gotten our hair cut - so we did!

This was one of the best, most relaxing days we have had in a LONG time!
It will be the first of many Not Back to School Days in our household!