Ways to Make Back to School Fun

The back to school transition has so many rituals. There's the dentist appointments, the clothes shopping, the supply list, the meeting the teacher before school starts, etc. So much of this can be dreaded by kids as it means the end of the (relative) freedom of their summer days. For parents, there is both relief as the kids will soon be back in school so they won't have to hear about how bored the kids are, and a little bit of sadness as they may not to be able to see their child as much. But there are some fun things to do to wind up the summer and get into the school mode again.

Try to spend a day before school starts on a really fun family outing. This could be whatever your family enjoys; a theme park, camping, going to the movies, whatever. But doing something together can help to bring the end of summer vacation to a really fun close and also break up all of the various errands that you all have to run together before the school year begins.

Another things that would be good to do is to sit down with each child and have a discussion. Make goals together for this school year. If your child struggles with reading, discuss some ways that you can help her. Or if math is the turn-off, talk about some ways that you can help him. At the end of your discussion, do a fun project! Make a chart of the goals and decorate it together. You can do this on paper with markers, stickers, etc or use the computer so you can both hone your Excel and Photoshop skills.

As going back to school usually means a lot of work for your child, sit down as a family and brainstorm something fun that you can do each week to blow off a little steam. Everyone will look forward to the family event. It can be like a mini-vacation where you forget work for a few hours and your kids can forget their school. Rent movies, go on nature walks, go to Chuck E. Cheese. It doesn't matter, as long as you and your kids know that each week won't be boring and monotonous now that they're back in school.

Make having to cover the textbooks a fun thing! While school shopping, let your child choose wild stickers, cool pens, or great scrapbooking supplies so that they're excited to wrap their textbook up and then personalize it. The same thing goes for spiral-bound notebooks and binders. Kids can decorate their notebook covers or their binders. If they have to use dividers, even the dividers can be decorated! It can all be done in a theme. Again, this is an area where your kids can either do it all by hand or on the computer.

Something else that would be fun to do is make a list of healthy, tasty, after-school snacks that you can make together. Your kids will learn basic cooking skills (and science and math!) and you'll have fun together. Your children can then look forward to knowing that when they come home from school each day, they'll have a great snack waiting on them that they helped to make and choose. Not all weeks can be cooking weeks, but by having a list of favorite snacks on hand, you can have a back-up for the pumpkin bread - peanut butter on crackers works great too.

All of these ideas will help families to become closer together and children to look for the fun in each day. They will help kids to see that going back to school isn't something to dread, but it is another transition, and you can still have entertaining things to do once schoolwork is finished.