When I was a kid, we never took first-day-of-school pictures! I don't know why.I'm sure my mother had plenty of other things on her plate. It probably never crossed her mind to do it! So, anyway, I didn't think to take first-day-of-school pictures either. I didn't even know such a thing existed! But since Pinterest and Facebook and the Blogging world, at large, have come into my life, I have realized that there are a whole heck of a lot of people who take these pictures. At first, I thought "Its too late! Silas is already in the 3rd grade!" Then I thought "I'm not a scrapbooker! What will I do with all those pictures?? They'll get misplaced, forgotten, and out of sequence." But I love traditions! I really, really do! I stretch my brain to think of new ways to create memorable traditions for my kids, especially during the holidays. Things that define this family, and that maybe they will want to bring into their families when they get married. Ideally they will be God-Treasuring traditions. Things that have meaning, not just things to do because we do them every year. But some traditions just for fun are good, too. So, the more I think about it the more value I see in it. I mean especially since, as homeschoolers, we don't do "school pictures" like they do in traditional schools. What a great record of their growth year by year!
So anyway I started seeing some really cute ways of doing it on Pinterest and I decided to do it this year. And then right before school started this post came out from one of my favorite bloggers gracefullmama.com about some ways to make transitioning from summer to school more fun and less stress. I didn't do many of them and we started school 3 days later than planned b/c my wonderful hubby decided to finish that closet for me last minute :D But what I did do was follow this link to find these adorable printables. I saved every one of them on my computer because I'm planning on doing this every year. And I printed them out on cardstock for durability.
I took it one step further, too. You know all those cute "interviews" people pin to do with your child at a certain age? Well I looked at every one I could find and picked out the questions I liked best, tweaked some, and added a few of my own and printed that on the back. Then i sat down with each of my kids individually the day before school started, asked them the questions, and wrote down exactly what they said. They said some of the cutest stuff!!! I'm keeping a 2" binder so every year I can put their interview/grade sign across from their pictures in sheet protectors so they won't get lost ... or destroyed.
And then maybe I'll put them into matching frames to hang on the wall until the end of the year when they can stand in the same place, holding their picture from the beginning of the year like this:
 |
| click picture to take you to the original site |
I have to be honest, though, this post comes late because I didn't get FIRST-day-of-school pictures. Not even SECOND or THIRD-day-of-school pictures! These pictures were taken today. Saturday. A full three WEEKS after school started. Oh well. They were taken and that's what matters! I'm only sorry I didn't start when Silas was 3!
Well, what about you? What are your back to school traditions? What are you planning on starting for the future?
