Our School 2011, Week 1

The first week of school has come and gone. And it went pretty well, too!!

Aside from falling down on the job with the First Day of School party (lots of reasons behind that — I made that up this week, though,) everything went pretty well and for the most part the kids enjoyed themselves. Read that as “the whining had not set in yet.” ; )

Even though Monday was a holiday — and my birthday — I decided to start school that day anyway. (Reason being that we never go anywhere or do anything for my birthday outside of supper and cake at home anyway, and what better day for a party than a holiday?) We didn’t party much but we DID do some Labor Day activities and talk about the history and reason for Labor Day, and tied that in with our lessons. As far as school goes, we only did Bible and Language Arts — after all, it was LABOR DAY! A day to rest from your LABOR! =) I also tried to take “First day of school pictures” at the park. Something else that didn’t work/didn’t happen. My camera is dying a slow and painful death. = (

Other notable things from the past week:

I got some more last minute organizing done. (Only a smidge more left that I want to do. I did a lot more than what’s in THIS picture, though. I was busy!!)

We started a new grammar book this year, “Our Mother Tongue,” which sometimes, but not always, uses biblical truths or bible verses to demonstrate grammar. We’re doing it as a group, with the oldest doing more of the exercises, the middle doing less, and the youngest just listening in.

We had to dig out sweaters!! (Of course, we haven’t needed them since….) Apparently, Princess thought our winter weather buckets looked like a good place to do math? I didn’t stop her… she was doing her math without complaining!!

Little Prince entertained himself by making pipe cleaner people when he wasn’t working one on one with me or listening in on a group lesson. (I love that it only takes a package of pipe cleaners to make him happy!!)

Little Prince did his first copywork! And he did so well! I honestly didn’t think he’d sit still for the whole thing and that we’d have to take a break or finish the next day. But he did it all in one sitting and enthusiastically, too. I helped him more with the first line, but the rest is all him! I had no idea he would like it so much. Today I was caught unprepared when I didn’t have one for him and he didn’t like that one little bit…

We also had a chance to hear the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra do a presentation for a local school. It was fun and even more educational than I expected. The conductor spent a fair amount of time talking to the students between the numbers teaching them about the orchestra, the different instrument sections and the different kinds of music. The kids really had a lot of fun. We also went to the park (twice) and had plenty of time for outside playtime with the glorious weather that we had.

For the new week ahead, we have our Worksheets ready to use, our experiement box is complete, and the desktop is set up. Still to do, I haven’t lesson planned and prepped history (we’re doing review right now, anyway, since we’re going chronological, still in Mystery of History Volume 1 and haven’t looked at it in several months.) So I have time this upcoming week to get that ready to resume lessons on the next Monday. Still lots to do! But it will all get done and it will all work out. =)