I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!
First Day of School Photo (No, they're not twins; Soprano's just tall for her age.
Why they're both holding their hands that way, I don't know.)
We had everything mostly ready so we decided to just start school! The kids were too excited to wait any longer. (Really!) I think part of the excitement was that we hadn't let them into the schoolroom for the past 3 weeks while I decorated, stocked, and finished things off.
We knew they'd need time in the room to check it out and explore before we had a real school day so we had the grand reveal on Sunday afternoon.
They had fun checking out their fresh school supplies, personalized spaces, and different resources in our room.
Wednesday morning came and they could barely contain themselves they were so excited to start. (I know I've just used the word 'excited' way too many times but there is no other way to describe how happy they were.) After I took their 'coming down the hallway' pictures (like we do on Christmas morning), I had them start their morning chores.
Now with them being home all the time, I know full well the house will get dirtier and more untidy more often. So I made a 'team work' chart that we'll follow each day for our chore time. Anybody can pitch in (even Mom---maybe) to do our daily tasks or jobs that we'll tackle once a week. They, in their hyper excitement, raced to do the chores so we could start school! That's never happened before!
After our morning tasks and hygiene were taken care of, we headed into the schoolroom.
The day overall went really well. It took a little longer than I was thinking but since it was our first day, we spent time explaining the process of how we'll do things each day, where to put finished papers that need to be checked by mom, and how to use the work schedule and boxes that we had set up.
Tenor completed his typing, math, and reading rather quickly.
Soprano did really well with her math and reading and then had a little difficulty with SOS Spanish. I think a few more lessons will help her understand how the program works. She giggled a lot at the story that was read. (La niña sees la rata. La niña says, "Eek!" La rata says, "Eek!")
After their individual work, we jumped into our first day of MFW Exploring Countries and Cultures. They liked filling out their passport applications but Tenor really wanted his right away. I told him government bureaucracy takes time. They also really liked the Wee Sing song that we listened to. Soprano is in 2nd grade so she's using The Complete Book of Animals and completed 2 of the farm animals worksheets.
After a quick break for lunch, we came back to Language Arts for both and handwriting for Tenor. After, they played outside for awhile and then school was done! I think we did Day 1 rather well. (Going to Olive Garden for dinner to celebrate our first day was just a bonus!)
Day 2 started with a repeat of chore time excitement. We started with our pledges and prayer and then into individual work. Spanish, math, and reading all went pretty well.
Then we worked together on ECC. The younglings enjoyed creating their John 3:16 posters. I found an idea online (I can't remember who's blog----sorry!) where they color copied a few pages from Children of the World to use for the posters. So I followed suit and theys had fun choosing which pictures to include on their posters. We used letter size cardstock so that we can include them in their ECC binders.
After they made good progress on their posters, we had a quick lunch and then started our Maps and Globes project. They did well to draw continents on their clementines, then I helped get the peeling started. Helpful tip: use a Sharpie to draw and not washable markers. We had some serious marker bleeding going on which made the final examination a little difficult. The kids got the point though.
Tenor's (North and South America)
Soprano got the equator down pretty well. The rest was a little... um... sketchy. :)
Mom's (Asia... sort of)
Day 3 (and the last of our first 'week'), we had another great chore time today. I'm not sure who these chore-loving children are but I'll keep them for as long as they want to stay!
Our school day started with pledges and prayer and the usual individual subjects. The actual schoolwork goes well but Soprano is having a little trouble understanding her printed schedule. She persistently will finish and then come to ask me what she should do next.
Her printed schedule has everything in order as does her magazine holder 'workbox.' I'm hoping it's just her age and familiarity with traditional school that makes her hesitant to proceed on her own. We'll keep working on it.
After a million interruptions (Verizon tech fixing the phone, then calling about said phone issue, more phone calls, unexpected friend visiting, Soprano not knowing what to do next), we got to our MFW ECC work.
With a 2nd grader and 4th grader, I try to do all of their 'together' work at the same time and then let them finish up with any individual stuff. Soprano did 2 more worksheets on farm animals from The Complete Book of Animals while Tenor did some 'search and find' exercises with me using the Illustrated World Atlas. I just asked him use the index to find various countries or cities in the atlas. I picked countries where we know people live, have lived, or have been missionaries to try to personalize it.
We quick did language arts and handwriting before stopping to eat.
After lunch, we went outside to do the Backyard Habitat exercise. Soprano wasn't really into it but they both finished. Overall the day took 3 hours.
So we survived our first, somewhat shortened, week of school.
Oh, I am just loving all the back to school posts! They are so fun and remind me of how excited and scared I was to enter the new grade!
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