Day 1

Here comes a long winded post to tell in excruciating detail about my 1st day EVER of homeschooling my children...because someone may care (Grandparents!).  :)

6:30am...Woke up and realized the day had finally arrived!  I got my shower in before Brian left.

7-8am: I ate breakfast with Nathan, got my computer time in and had my quiet time.  

8-8:30am: Fed the other 3 kids and then directed them in getting ready for the day.  That mainly included dressing Nathan and reminding Samuel of what he was doing.

8:30am: Everyone gathered for calendar time.  I was so impressed.  They all sat down of their own accord.  They were excited to start.  And it was so precious that Nathan came and had a seat, too.  He had no clue what was happening, of course.

8:45ish?-9:45am We did all the calendar stuff and then I showed Hunter and Lily their "workfolders" and explained how that would work.  They got right to it--in fact Hunter picked reading as his first activity.  Shock!  I then started preschool with Samuel.  He did not want his siblings watching him so we sat in the hallway by my bedroom.  That worked!  We then went into the kitchen for some painting.  Here we are learning that only God can create something from nothing.

I then showed him how to use the Wikki Stix alphabet cards.  He loved this!

I then showed Samuel his extra work, which is not required.  It's just different activities from my favorite sites that are geared towards preschoolers.  One of the activities was the PowerPoint shows from 1+1+1=1.  He loved those!  He then wanted to spend more play time on the computer, which was fine.  Hunter and Lily also finished all their individual work by 9:45 and I gave them questions on their reading.  It was then just free time until lunch so they were so excited.  In the picture below, the 3 kids are showing off their new water bottles they received as a 1st day of homeschool gift!

Here's Nathan with his own bottle and some sunchips he managed to spill onto the table.  He wasn't too distracting during the morning school time.  I mainly have to make sure he doesn't kill the cat.

10-11am was just free time and I got some housework done.  They spent some time outside, some time on the computer and just free play.

11-11:30am: Lunch (we eat early!) plus clean up

11:30am-12pm: We went outside and this is what really turned my energy level down.  After just 30 minutes, I was exhausted and hot.  Sad, huh? The kids rode bikes, used the swings and blew bubbles.

12-1pm: I let the kids have some TV time while I talked to Brian and played with Nathan.

1-2:30:  I laid Nathan down and we started on 2nd grade!  I let the kids play with Thinking Putty while I read from our history book (American Pioneers and Patriots).  I kept stopping to ask questions because I was doubting whether they were registering anything but they did okay.  We then had geography, which is the picture below.  You can't see it as well but that's the earth with the 7 continents placed haphazardly appropriately.  The kids then hopped, twirled, etc from continent to continent (per Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory's instructions).  This was a lot of fun!

We had poetry, Bible, phonics and math.  Things were going pretty good.  Math was a little hairy.  Someone has a bad attitude about it.  Someone else was comparing the math to last year's math.  Sigh.  I thought it went okay but I don't think it was the favorite part of the day!

Finally, we were ending with our read aloud, which is by genre.  First up is a biography so the curriculum had us do a fun activity!  We picked 5 things to put in a bag to tell others about ourselves.  We then had snack and a read aloud, which was feeling a bit long due to the 4yo's boredom at that point.  He went through his work (coloring and cutting) very quickly so was just hanging around the twins while they did work.  He can't be in his room because Nathan is napping so I need to think of something for him...

So, we were done by 2:30 and Nathan was up a little after 3pm.  I feel exhausted but good!  I think overall it went really well for Day 1.  In fact, I had some moments that I felt were perfect:

1) Hunter read to Lily this morning so she could help him with some words.

2) Hunter read the PowerPoint words to Samuel.

3) Lily blew bubbles for Nathan outside and was so sweet with him!

4) Samuel telling me he was "really good at home today".  :)

Things to think about:
1. I forgot Hunter's glasses all day!  We aren't used to wearing them but they help with reading, at least.  I have to remember that!

2.  Do I need to change up math?  It's only been 1 day but Someone is so resistant to it that the day was kind of going downhill for a bit.

3. What else can Samuel do in the afternoon??

Miscellaneous pictures: Here's the kids looking at their secret code message.  This was just for the twins but Samuel enjoyed checking it out.  It read: "Your teacher loves you!"

Sweet Nathan...giving me all kinds of gray hair but a cutie!