Happy Monday: Our First Day back to school 2012-2013

As the first day of school was approaching I noticed I was a bit more excited than Ava, which made me a bit worried that the first day of school wouldn't go as smoothly as it did in my beautifully smooth expectations were in my head, complete with smiling children who would respond with, 'Why thank you, mother, for all your hard work and dedication'. I took Ava's groans every time I mentioned school as a sign that that might not happen. This would also be the first year Asa would be really joining in on the fun, plus I'll be watching a sweet little girl one to two days a week. Just to throw one more thing in the mix, I'm not using a set curriculum with an instruction manual and everyday planned out like I had last year. To a seasoned pro this is nothing, to a newbie who wants everything to be just right and meet up with her unrealistic expectations...well...

Ava said Mr. Macaw was also excited.

Ava's sign reads 1st day of First Grade

Asa's sign reads 1st day of Preschool

   To my surprise both kids woke up before my alarm went off (I was going to try to wake up a little earlier than them...6:30) and they were raring to go! We had french toast and eggs and we all got dressed...this is a big deal because Asa doesn't like to wear clothes. But when he does, he likes button down shirts and khaki pants...nature boy or preppy boy....all or nothing....he errors on the side of nature boy/nothing though.  We were going to go for a walk before we started school. I thought they would love this and might put them in a good mood Ava was not excited about school. But Ava was insistent that she wanted to skip the walk and start school as soon as possible. Praise God! We finally got into our school room at 8:30! My goal was actually 8:00 but I guess the coffee took longer to kick in than I thought. We started the school year off with a 1st grader and a preschooler! Time flies! Now I feel funny saying I have a 5 year old 1st grader, but Ava won't hesitate! ...though she will remind you that she is almost 6! Asa really wanted to join in last year, so this year I have more for him to do, but I won't flunk him if he just wants to play.



  Now having a school room is new for us! In a way I loved having school at our dinning room table. We don't need anything fancy, just great books! But its SO nice not having to put everything away come dinnertime...bring out school books, pack up, wipe, and repeat sort of thing. There are still some projects I want to complete in the schoolroom, but it was by God's grace that it actually came together because I take forever to do projects! If you look closely, there is painter's tape everywhere!
   The day started with calendar/circle time since we are using Letter of the Week from Confessions of a Homeschooler and then we worked on their work boxes, which they loved! I'll write an ode to work boxes soon. I thought Asa would dive right in because he in constantly doing crafts or things you'd find in a workbox anyways, but we didn't even get though taking a couple pictures before he said...well just take a look at the pictures first...

At this point Asa said, "I'm bored"....pause....he lays his head on his desk, "I sooooo tired!" haha, I guess all that excitement, waking up at 6:00am, finally caught up with him at his school desk at 8:35am.

This is how we spent calendar time. Asa said, "Mommy, I wanna nuggle". oh, melt my heart.

Fortunately, the little guy perked up to learn about our Letter of the Week!

 He did such a great job. I'm always impressive with him coordination, yet he gets upset when its not perfect just like Ava did/does, regardless of my encouragement. He really liked his work but didn't last too long before he wanted to lay on the couch with his pillow (a giant, feather down pillow he has claimed as his lovey) .

Ok, so the reason I don't scrapbook is because I always want to use all of my pictures....well, same issue here. I only took pictures the first half hour give or take of our school day, yet I'm using every picture! I meant to take pictures outside with the kiddos holder their signs so they would be more clear but we never did. I'd also like to mention that it didn't take long before Asa took all his clothes off!

Ava did a great job in record time. This week I've added some review which she zoomed through today. She had fun making a worksheet with proper nouns relating to her as well as doing 'cupcake' math, and learning about her own history in Story of the World.

I am so excited about our curriculum this year, its a little ridiculous! Here is just a little overview:

Language Arts: Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, First Language Lessons, Writing With Ease, readers, and lots and lots of read-alouds!

All About Spelling: If you would have told me that I would be this excited about SPELLING...I would have laughed. in your face.

Math-U-See: while Ava is continuing with Math-U-See, I am adding in a lot of hands on work instead of all the worksheets because she found math pretty boring last year. The Math-U-See videos and teachers instruction manual are SO good I did not want to try anything else. Me and Teacherspayteacher.com and pinterest have been best buds.

Story of the World with activity book

Apologia's Land Animals of the sixth day with the Junior Notebooking Journal 

Map work

Missions and Bible

I'm so excited about this year! Um...our whole school day only took 2 hours! I was sad when it was over! I guess it was a good first day easing back into things. The truth is that, I do believe, homeschooling is the easier part of the day. Later today Asa squirted spray sunscreen all over my kitchen cabinets while I was cleaning another room and managed to figure out how to make a weapon out of a child's plastic fork by placing it in a vacuum tube, swing it forward, while the fork launches out. The kids also got to play in the rain, midway through, yet again Asa was half naked, and they also managed to watch too much tv and play on the computer too much. I'm shooting for a longer school day tomorrow. All that to say, we didn't even eat on our kitchen table tonight!..but instead on the living room floor, picnic style, because we are in the middle of painting the dinning room. Se la Vie.
  Oh we also ended the day with Apple cake seeming how this is "A" week...yeah, just an excuse to make this not so healthy, but super easy recipe: Apple Cake Thanks, Corrine for pinning it! But...Asa didn't want any because he was too tired from getting up so early. So it didn't end up being a learn moment, but the rest of us gave it an A+...ok. corny, I know. Here's to a happy Tuesday!
 p.s. For the second year in a row Ava has suggested that our school name be "The Maths"...we are still working on improving that...