Thread: Weekly Poll: How do you celebrate finishing your end of the school year or grade?

How do you celebrate finishing your end of the school year or grade?
This weekly poll was inspired by BusyGoddess

When I came across this thread in the forum it got me thinking... I know you are scared right?
But seriously, being a year round homeschooling family we don’t really take much of a break before jumping into the next school/grade’s year work. Like my youngest, who is 3rd grade has
went through all the 3rd grade materials and so we just naturally started on 4th grade. I said” Great Job, let’s see what is next” but no end of the grade party, special day field trip, “Just come on let’s get going again!” SO everyone, let us know what you do for your kids when they complete a grade or get finished with a really intense subject/material. And if you pick Other please tell us what you do!

I keep track of the days that my girls do work, I have a folder for each of them and fill it with all of their stuff. And we keep a daily roll and this is based on the days that we meet. And we go by 180 day school year. So at the end of that school year we take a break and move on. If we are still in middle of a unit we finish that unit out though as long as we have no less than 180 days per school year.

We don't do any real celebration. We probably do not jump right in with the next level because we have to wait for it, so there is a break.
All of our units end with a project, so there is a natural conclusion.
No party or special event though.

I picked "other" simply because we've only had one end of school year so far. We took dd out to eat at her choice of restaurant and presented her with a K certificate. We also did graduation pictures to send out to people, that was fun. I don't know what we'll do this year, it depends when we end. We started in June last year but switched curriculum in January, so we have several months left.

Last year we went to "our" island with co-op and signed yearbooks that we had made. And then the kids climbed down into the fountains and found a lot of slugs which they made up a musical about. Maybe we'll do that again.

We didn't do anything last year, but this is the first year that DS has indicated that rituals are really important to him. I'm so conflicted over what "school" is for us; my heart leans unschooly and interest led, yet we actually follow a lot of curriculum and a pretty consistent schedule. So if we celebrate the "end of the school year" that feels to me like we're giving up formal learning for the summer, and I don't want him to see it that way. I'm probably over thinking it, as usual. He could no more not learn than he could not breathe so I guess I'd better think up something fun. I think I'll suggest something to the homeschool group, maybe we can have a play day at the beach.

I sometimes print up certificates to signify the end of a book or something, but that's about it. I do bigger celebrations for milestones in between, like learning all the addition facts or whatever.

We take the boys to the zoo or science museum, out for lunch and have a nice day. Their Great Grandma sends them a card every year congrats'ing them on moving to the next year and she includes a $1 bill.

This is our first year so we haven't done anything yet. I like seeing what other people have done, gives me ideas. We will be schooling some through the summer but still it would be fun to mark the end of our first year as homeschooers.

We do nothing. We used to, way back when we started (9 years ago), but as ds got older, it just wasn't that big of a deal anymore. We do, however, have a big ol' celebration on the first day of the public school year. We head out to breakfast, hit Powell's book store (a WHOLE city block of books!) and load up on any cool thing we can find, go see a movie and then anywhere else ds wants to go.