First Day

 Planning, praying, perspiring, more planning, pondering. . . The decision to homeschool our three oldest this year was certainly not easy.  Although I am beyond certain that we made the right decision, it still doesn't take away the butterflies and the "what-if's" and the uncertainties.  Technically last year was our first year of homeschooling, but it was only the Drama Queen.  She is bright and loves school; so it really was an easy year overall.  Being pregnant with Little Sprout did complicate things a little, and towards the end, we were both agonizing through endless worksheets and books.  I am learning a lot about homeschooling though.  It's not "school at home."  You don't have to do every. single. worksheet.  If she can spell all the words on her list without looking on Monday, there's no sense in dragging it out for the whole week.  If curriculum isn't working, I have the power to ditch it and find something that does.  Anyway.

 We had our first official day of school yesterday.  The Nerd had steam-cleaned the carpet in our "school-room" the night before; so I got up early to move furniture back in, look over lesson plans, make pancakes, soothe an unhappy baby, push the unfolded laundry to the end of the couch, etc.

 When I came out to the living room, I found Little Miss Drama Queen curled up on the couch asleep.  As soon as she smelled the pancakes sizzling on the griddle, she shot up from under her blanket and asked if it was time to start school yet.  I was tickled to see that she had gotten up in the middle of the night and changed into her "back-to-school outfit" before going back to sleep.

 Since no day passes around here without some drama, our first day of homeschooling certainly had its share.  Spud woke up sobbing that he didn't feel good and spent all his time at the breakfast table crying that his brother was "looking at him."  The Beast was of course overstimulated with the excitement and difference in schedule.  He spent a lot of time running into walls and causing general chaos.  No one was particularly thrilled to be posing for so many first day pictures, but obviously they did a great job faking it.

The school day went well enough.  It helped me see where my planned schedule didn't work and where I could cut time.  I got the same tingle of excitement that I got every year as a school teacher before I had my kids.  When asked what their favorite part of the day was, The Drama Queen responded with "math class" and the Spud favored coloring the American flag in history class.  The Beast's favorite?  Sharpening pencils and making sure everything was in his pencil box.  Obviously we have lots of room for progress. :)  Afterwards, we headed out to the library to check out books on the topics we are studying in history and science.  Then I took them to the park to burn off some extra energy.  (I had no extra energy at this point).

Here's to another successful day today.  Hey, I'll settle for a pretty average day.  Also, I need to write in "Teacher Nap Time" on the schedule.

Homeschool - First Day

Well, we took the plunge and started our year of homeschooling the Drama Queen on Tuesday. This decision to homeschool our daughter did not come without its share of inner turmoil, fears, anxieties, and general "What-if?"s. Still, I know it is the absolute best thing for our family this year, and I looked forward to the first day almost as eagerly as our little scholar. I was nervous about time management and little-boy-wrangling on the side, though.

The Drama Queen started the day off by posing for a bunch of first-day photos and exploring the writing instruments and shiny new textbooks in her desk. Although she is technically in kindergarten, her academic skills are far beyond that of a kindergartener; so I purchased first grade curriculum to teach to her this year.

I wrote out some rough lesson plans for our first day for each of her subjects, not knowing how much time it was going to take to teach one child each of these things. I am used to planning out lessons for classes of 15 or more students! During our first day, I recorded how much time it took for each subject to use for future lesson planning. Disregarding sibling interruptions and other distractions, actual class time was about 2 1/2 hours - much faster than I anticipated. We made time for a "recess" break and a snack as well. The Drama Queen soaked it all in, especially science class, which is her favorite by far.

We set up a large white board in the dining room for the teaching times. I have always enjoyed "board work" as a teacher and would take hours in the evenings to set up my boards for the next day of school. now I get to do that again - on a much smaller scale of course, but it is so fun to see the Drama Queen's reaction when she comes out for breakfast in the morning and sees the exciting things we will be learning that day.

Of course, we don't want to leave the Beast out of all of this. As I mentioned before, he has been approved for a blended class at the local community school this semester (a mixed class of both "normal" kids and kids with autism or attention deficit disorder.) He started his first class with his new teacher, Miss Alison, today. He went right into the classroom but then the shyness and nerves took over. He headed straight for a chair in the reading corner and hid behind it. When I picked him up two hours later, he kept hugging and kissing me and asking me to hold him. I tried to talk to him about what he actually did in school that day, but as usual the vague little man left me hanging. All I know is that there is a class pet turtle.

In the meantime, the Spud tries to horn in whenever he can. I caught him singing today, "A,E,I,O,U, I can sing my vowels to you." I do try to include him in Bible time as well as art time and other activities as much as possible.

Of course, we are in the midst of first-week-of-school-euphoria. I am fully expecting a stubborn Drama Queen to melt down at some point in the future, crying that she can't do it, and also anticipating that this growing-ever-more-tired-by-the-day preggo momma will have a day or two when I just don't want to do it. Welcome to real life, peeps!

And with that, I had better get some rest. We are facing basic addition in arithmetic tomorrow!