First Day of Third Grade: Minecraft Schultute

As homeschoolers, we celebrate the first day of school a little but differently than our public-schooled peers. On the first day of first grade, we had sort of a Christmas-homeschool morning with educational gifts like a chess set and a Rubik's cube. On the first day of second grade, our family went spelunking at the Moaning Caverns in Vallecito, Ca.

This year we had another Christmas-homeschool type of morning, mostly because I'm about seven months along in my pregnancy and that's about the only physical adventure I can stand right now. But I still wanted to make his first day special. Lately, Aidyn has joined the millions of other Minecraft fans and, on most days, eats, breathes, and sleeps all things Minecraft.

The night before I made him a Minecraft schultute. A schultute is a cone-shaped holder of goodies, a first-day-of-school German tradition going back to the early 1800s. It's also fairly common in the homeschool world to give these schultutes, but this was our first time.

We filled and overflowed it with all kinds of goodies-- a Minecraft foam sword, kinetic sand, Create and Destroy Fortress Invasion clay, glue sticks, Minecraft benders, a Guardians of the Galaxy dog tag, a Minecraft creeper poster, a box of Buddy Bars, a box of Nerds...

AND a new-to-him scooter. The weekend prior, David and I found a scooter at a thrift store for $7, so we brought it home, cleaned it up, and added new handlebar grips and Minecraft stickers.

He rode it outside before we started school and during every break throughout the day. 

For breakfast, I made him a creeper pancake.

And we eventually started our day.

I regret not taking many pictures of the rest of our day, but Aidyn worked on a sheet of Minecraft Math  (addition and subtraction sheets can be found at this link) until our math curriculum comes in on Thursday. Aidyn took the placement test for Spelling Power, learned about mapping a story with our grammar book, restarted our reading program and listed things he wants to learn about in 3rd grade (most of which are underwater creatures like piranhas and sharks.

 We had a good, Miecrafty sort of first day and are looking forward to the new school year!

Here are some other first-day-of-school traditions and ideas:

First Day of School Traditions
Back to Homeschool and End-of-the-Year Celebrations on Pinterest

And if you're wanting to fit Minecraft into your learning:

Minecraft Activities, Coloring, and Worksheets Pinterest page
Learning by Playing Minecraft-- Resources for Parents and Teachers

And if you want to make your own schultute:

Make a Schultute!
Make a Schultute for Your Child's First Day of School

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