This is my fourth year homeschooling our kids! I can't really even believe it has been that long. This homeschooling adventure has been and continues to be such a fun and interesting and full of opportunities to lean on Him experience.
Each year has been different in many ways including starting the new year. It is fun to me to see the progression. Year one the house was just so. I had set up our “classroom”. I got up and got dressed in something I would have worn when teaching public school. The night before I was planning to start our school year, Adrian took the kids to Chick-fil-A to give me a quiet house to finish my prep. I was exhausted and the only thing that sounded good was bed.
I have learned despite my tendencies to be a night owl that a rested mama is a better mama. So I went to bed with the book box half filled, the empty library crate, the huge collection of cardboard boxes that the kids created with over the weekend and David’s Lego train track, his inspiration of the day yesterday, still taking up most of the living room floor. They didn’t care or notice as they opened a few fun garage sale find back to school presents and everyone is calm and happy!
Silly as this sounds in some ways as I write it out, there was a time when it would have bothered me that when I was hoping for "tidy and organized" for "structure" to begin that David showed up for the first day of school in his too small and smelly from summer wearing and not enough depositing it in the laundry chute shark costume BUT I recently read Greta Eskridge's post that gave me wonderful perspective and is helping me calm down inside about such things.
ha ha, when you buy a "new" drawing pad at a garage sale sometimes there is still a leftover drawing from the previous owner. ;)
After some morning time on the couch reading from the book of Romans (we have been making our way through the Bible, roughly a book a week since last August), finishing our Interlibrary Loan procured read aloud that is due, Will and Charlie Mayo, Boy Doctors, etc. I gave them some free time to play with the lego train and then we got ready to leave the house.
We went to pick up our curriculum for the year at our one day a week school. Cora has been SO excited to have her own math book like brother! She was thrilled and immediately started working through the pages in the backseat as we rode in the car the rest of the day. David was there to help read directions and check her work. A bonus I hadn't previously thought about!
We went to a couple of different stores to try to buy a few fun school supplies like a spiral for each of them that we use throughout the year but those couple stops were not the highlight of our day. There was wild silliness, crowds, lots of restocking carts clogging aisles, crazy drivers, etc. David did stumble across a diary with a lock though and movable sequins that he was super excited about so that was good though.
Then we hit up a STEAMfest at one of our local libraries, the Sand Creek library, a location that was new to us to visit. We had been at our "home library" the day before turning in books and cashing in for Cora's Summer Reading prizes and we saw the poster. It seemed like a perfect way to cap off our first day of school.
There was an activity where you sorted items into recycling and trash bins . . .
optical illusion tops . . .
taste tests, sound experiments and
probably David's favorite . . . 3D pens! He has been eyeing these for awhile online having seen one advertised in a Scholastic catalog I think. He wanted to buy one and then create an Eiffel Tower for me for a birthday present but the price was a little steep.
The kids each had a ticket and at each station received a sticker. When they collected five stickers we got to turn the ticket in for a sack full of fun school supplies AND a fidgit spinner. I know the craze has been going on for a while but these were actually their first ones and they have had so much fun playing with them!
They got to make buttons and control robots with ipads, build with cubelets, pet a blue tongued skink, etc.
I got to meet and have nice conversations with a couple moms, one from Italy! and another who is just beginning her first year of homeschooling.
We had a great day, came home exhausted, had a throw together dinner telling Dad all about it and hit the sack!
One last photo, pic of Cora's math book taken by her in the backseat of the car. 😍
Kelly
