1st Day of Homeschool

Today was the day I have been waiting for for months, our very first day of homeschool.  A lot of time, thought, energy and resources were put in to make this experience happen.  I've been excited, curious how everything will work and nervous about how the girls would feel about not going to regular school.

The morning started out great.  I woke up before the girls for my quiet time and felt really refreshed and  excited for the day to start.  The girls woke up around 7:15 and I made breakfast per their individual requests:  Noelle and Jaelyn wanted cereal and Joleigh and Naya had pancakes.  I started a new morning routine last week to get us more organized with our time.  After breakfast we cleaned up and had our family devotional time.  Then we headed upstairs to make beds, get dressed, brush hair and teeth and tidy upstairs.

I wanted to capture pictures of the girls first day of school.

Noelle's first day of Kindergarten

 Joleigh's first day of 2nd grade

 Jaelyn will be attending Happy Apple Preschool 2 days a week and she starts next Tuesday.  But we wanted to capture her first day too.

Here are all the girls in the classroom ready and excited to start the day.  We actually waited until 9:00 to start, after Naya went down for her morning nap.

 I wrote the girls a morning message and Joleigh read it to everyone.

I planned a half day today, since it is Joe's day off.  I wanted to get the girls familiar with our new routines and expectations.  We started the day off with our calendar activities and then also had some morning dance time.  As we were reviewing our "rules" for the class we created a Recipe for Success (I found on Pinterest and tweaked it a little).

Recipe for Success

You will need:

·        2 cups of Effort = Pretzels

·        2 cups of Kindness = Cheerios

·        3 handfuls of Curiosity = M & M’s

·        3 tablespoons of Honesty = Sunflower kernals

·        1 cup of Teamwork = Craisins

·        1 cup of Excitement of Learning = Peanuts

·        3 handful of Respect = Reese’s Pieces

·        3 Sprinkles of Pride in Your Work= Shredded Coconut

Method:

Combine all the ingredients with a gentle hand and a loving heart.

Success is always better when shared, so pass it around.

We created a class list and discussed how much fun we had this summer and all of the things that we got to do, as a way of saying goodbye.  And then the girls each took turns sharing what they thought we would do or wanted to do in school this year.

 Joleigh and Noelle then had a free writing assignment, where they chose to draw pictures of their summer vacation and then wrote about their experiences.

I had the girls do some beginning of the year handwriting samples, where they wrote their names, numbers and alphabet.  Joleigh had some free reading time while Noelle finished.  I spent the weekend leveling all the book I own, which is a lot!  It was helpful to be able to have books set aside for Joleigh and Noelle to grab that are at their reading level.

We then went into the kitchen and the girls helped make our own play dough for our class.

 Joleigh and Jaelyn had fun playing with their creation.  Noelle didn't like the smell at first and was having an emotional morning.  I'll share more about that.

We had lunch together and then I did some math assessments with Joleigh and Noelle.  I'm now enjoying this time, recapping and assessing how things went and how thing might go in the future.

The only discouraging time came today was when Noelle had a meltdown.  She was tired, became easily frustrated and started crying.  I sent her up to her room and then Joe and I later went to talk to her.  Part of the reason for her melt down was Joleigh woke her up this morning, so she was tired.  But the part that was hard for me, was hearing that she wanted to go to regular school and didn't know why she couldn't like Joleigh.  We had a really good talk and we both tried to encourage her and shared all the reasons we made this decision.  We talked about all the fun and positive things we did this morning.  She seemed to be cheered up and at least tried to understand.  It was hard for me to hear, even though I already knew she would have a hard time.  She is my social girl and I need to find outlets and opportunities for her to be around other kids her age.  So that is my goal.

I would have to say that the very best part about homeschooling, so far, is knowing that we will have some amazing family time together.  Joe got to experience our morning with us and now we will get to enjoy his day off together as a family.  Stay tuned for our new adventures in homeschooling.