Our First Week: We Are So Excited To Share About

Homeschooling in Ireland is never boring—especially when the changing seasons guide our lessons. This First Week, our family is embracing a theme-based homeschool curriculum that celebrates fall traditions, local festivals, and the natural beauty of County Cavan.

And our September theme for our first week? 🍁 “Discovering Fall & Local Traditions.” It’s the perfect way to welcome autumn in Ireland while blending history, reading, maths, and science into one meaningful story.

A Little Reminder Of Why We’re Using Seasonal Homeschool Themes

Homeschooling can feel overwhelming when every subject is separate. By choosing a monthly theme, our days flow together in a way that feels natural. Seasonal themes help us:

✨ Stay engaged with fresh topics every month.
✨ Connect lessons to real life and local culture.
✨ Keep a structure, while staying flexible when energy dips.
✨ And honestly? It just makes learning feel like an adventure, not a checklist.

Local Cavan Events We’re Excited For

County Cavan comes alive in September, and these festivals and traditions make the perfect backdrop for our homeschool days.

• Culture Night 2025 – Friday, 19 September. Venues across Cavan open late with free workshops, music, and performances. The kids can experience heritage and art in real time.
• Music to Your Ears Festival – Sunday, 31 August – Thursday, 4 September in Ballyconnell. Four days of live music and dance at the Slieve Russell Hotel (paulclaffeytours.ie).
• Arvagh International Fishing Festival – September (dates TBC). Ireland’s longest-running angling festival, full of local pride and outdoor fun (Arvagh).
• Mullagh Fair Day – Second Sunday of September. A historic fair filled with livestock, markets, music, and performances (Mullagh).

We’re planning to attend at least two or three of these. For us, festivals aren’t just fun—they’re mini history lessons, cultural adventures, and social studies rolled into one.

Learning Outdoors: Nature + Creativity

When we’re not at festivals, you’ll find us in the woods and fields of Cavan. Autumn turns our local forests into living classrooms. The kids will:

🍂 Collecting leaves, acorns, and berries for crafts and science journals.
📸 Taking photos of the changing colours and light for nature study.
🌗 Learning about seasonal changes, the equinox, and photosynthesis—all while crunching through golden leaves.

Last week, we headed to Cavan Burren Park. Walking among ancient tombs, glacial boulders, and limestone landscapes tied together geology, archaeology, and Irish folklore in one breath-taking field trip.

Our First Week of September: Fall Homeschool Curriculum

Here’s a peek at what our 5th-grade homeschool week looks like when themed around fall traditions in Ireland.

Day 1 – Welcoming Autumn
🍂 Read Seamus Heaney’s Blackberry-Picking and write our own fall descriptions, drawing what they understand from the poem.
🍂 Start a “Leaf Journal” and learn why leaves change colour.
🍂 Estimate how many leaves fall from one tree— Observation turned into maths.
🍂 Explore harvest traditions in Irish history.

This is just a sneak peek but as today comes to an end, I wanted to add that we have successfully started the: Spellbound 5th grader book, Cursive Writing and have yet to do some reading (I haven’t had the chance to go to the library so the book will be just a regular one until we find our September one for me to share with ya all)

In the meantime, here is what the next few days will look like:

Day 2 – Market Maths at Mullagh Fair
🍂 Set up a pretend fair stall with coins—addition, subtraction, and making change.
🍂 Learn the history of Mullagh Fair.
🍂 Create a fall mandala with natural items, exploring symmetry.
🍂 Read and retell an Irish harvest folktale.

Day 3 – Culture and Creativity
🍂 Learn about a local artist ahead of Culture Night.
🍂 Explore rhythm and fractions through music.
🍂 Start our Fall Journals with: “If I were a tree in autumn, I would…”

Day 4 – Science in the Forest
🍂 Classify forest finds as living, non-living, or once-living.
🍂 Learn about decomposition.
🍂 Use shadows and ratios to measure a tree.
🍂 Sketch and label a leaf cross-section.

Day 5 – Legends of the Land
🍂 Read the legend of the Giant’s Grave at Cavan Burren.
🍂 Act out or rewrite the story.
🍂 Estimate tomb sizes with footsteps and convert to metres.
🍂 Try a vinegar-and-chalk experiment to mimic limestone erosion.

I also created the printable free resources myself using the free version of Canva, here is the parent and kids ones, let me know what you think? I just find them super easy to use, we print them prior to class and have them with us the whole day. I also got the kids binders from Mr Price with monthly separators so they can store all of their pages (we are not losing any this year!!! Last year I had everything all over the place and now in big boxes and decided not to make the same mistake again!) Let me know what you think, I’ll send pix of what they look like later, so don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter to Keep in Touch :))

Weekly Parent Guide – 1
Daily Children Follow-Up – 1 (I am planning on a different one for each day but you can use the same printable for everyday of this week)

Why This Style Works for Us

By weaving subjects into a seasonal theme, learning feels less like ticking boxes and more like living the story. My kids don’t just read about history—they walk through ancient tombs. They don’t just solve maths problems—they use coins at a pretend fair. They don’t just study science—they watch the forest change with every leaf that falls.

Homeschooling in Ireland gives us the chance to learn deeply from the world around us. And here in County Cavan, surrounded by vibrant traditions and ancient landscapes, we truly have the perfect seasonal classroom.

✨ Coming soon: I’ll be sharing a fun homeschool style quiz and more seasonal resources. Until then, I’d love to hear from you—what fall traditions are you weaving into your homeschool this year?