Bangsund Family Blog: First Day of School

Today was the day! Luke and I started our home school experience together. He was up early, as usual. We ate some oatmeal together around 6:45 am and I realized that things were going to be starting up much earlier than I had planned. Sure enough, by 7:27 am Luke was dressed and checking out the additions to our school table. Last night after he went to bed, we prepped the area with all his curriculum and supplies, with the help of our good friend Ashli, a product of home schooling herself! I digress.
Our first activity was Family Bible Time. Our verse is Proverbs 4:20: "Pay attention my child to what I say. Listen carefully." Good verse, huh? We used hand motions to help us remember it. Then we talked about the attribute of attentiveness. "I listen with my ears, my eyes, and my heart." By the way, all of this stuff came with the curriculum I bought from Sonlight. It's fabulous stuff.
After Family Bible Time, we moved onto Language Arts. I am using a combination of perceptual growth workbooks from Sonlight and a phonics program called "Go Phonics!" that was written by a wonderful woman, Sylvia Davison. Luke used his new pencil to draw a line between Mr. Rabbit and his carrots. He also started learning to write his letters. Today's letter was L. Luke did a great job of forming his L's with his fingers on the rough work surface that my dad-in-law made for him. We also did a trace-copy-write activity with his pencil. He hasn't quite decided which hand to use to hold the pencil. He switches each time he puts it down. I figure eventually one of them will win out. Or he'll be ambidextrous. Whatever.
After Language Arts, we did Music and Motion! We have a great CD with some super fun songs. Today's song was "Drivin' in My Car." It's a fun one with motions and the opportunity to say beep a lot. Luke will happily sing it for you if asked. Eventually I want to start bringing in my guitar for Music and Motion, but it needs new strings and they didn't make the priority list for back-to-school preparation.
Science came next. We are reading "The Berenstain Bears' Big Book of Science and Nature" as our first venture. Today was pretty much just about introducing Luke to the idea of an Almanac and reading about the four seasons. We will get more into it tomorrow.
Art was so fast it almost doesn't count. I gave Luke a piece of his Color Wonder paper and his two recently acquired Color Wonder paint brushes. He swirled a few times with the blue and then got more focused with the yellow, making a great sun up at the top of his paper. And then he was done with that.
Our last activity is called Reflection and Prayer. I asked Luke what he liked most about his first day of school. He said, "The l's." :-) Then I asked him what he wants to do better tomorrow. He was pretty quiet at first. Then he said, "Maybe making the l's even better." Adorable. We closed our school day in prayer, thanking God for the opportunity to learn and asking Him for help to make our l's even better. I looked down at my watch and it was 8:14 am. So, I used the rest of the morning to do housework, play with the boys, and plan for tomorrow's school day. MUCH different from my first day ten years ago (!!!) as an 8th grade English teacher at Stahl Junior High. I know that if we continue with home schooling, the days will grow longer, with more subjects and more complex curriculum. At the moment, I am going to enjoy the absolute fun of teaching my son to read and write, knowing that God will equip me for whatever He has for our family, be it home school, or something else.
Here are the pics!