Start a Simple Back-to-School Tradition

Back-to-school traditions don’t have to be elaborate to become some of the memories your family looks forward to every year.

Maybe it’s pancakes for breakfast before school.

A special note tucked into their lunch.

Picking out a new backpack together.

Letting them choose their first-day outfit.

Or taking a first day of school photo in the same spot every year before heading out the door.

These little traditions can help make the first day feel extra special, especially during the busy back-to-school season when mornings can feel a little rushed.

Using a personalized first-day-of-school board can become one of those simple traditions your family repeats each September. Fill it in with a few details about who they are right now, snap a photo, and bring it out again the following year.

You can record things like their age, grade, teacher, favourite things, and what they want to be when they grow up. Those answers may seem small in the moment, but they are often the details you forget as the years go by.

Try taking the photo in the same spot each year, whether that is on your front porch, by the front door, or somewhere else that feels familiar. Over time, those photos become an easy way to see not only how much they have grown, but how much has changed from one school year to the next.

Before you know it, you’ll have a whole collection of first day of school pictures documenting their preschool, kindergarten, and elementary school years.

The backpacks get bigger, the answers on the board change, and somehow they seem to grow a little taller every time you take the photo.

And yes, there’s a very good chance you’ll look back at that first picture and wonder how it all went by so fast.