First Day of School

About a month ago, I decided that we were going to be starting school a little early this year.  Looking at the calendar, I picked Monday, August 19th as our start date, and assiduously began preparing.  You see, if I start early, I'm never behind.  Right?  ;-)

I will confess that this year, more than any other previous year, my preparations for the start of the year were minimal.  I'm blessed with awesome curriculum from Sonlight, Peace Hill Press, Apologia, and Math U See.  All of it is open and go.  Sonlight provides great books to read for Bible, History, and Read Aloud, along with a super easy to follow weekly schedule.  Peace Hill Press gives Luke super specific writing and grammar instruction.  Apologia is an open and go Astronomy course with handy dandy science journals included.  And Math U See - well it just rocks.

Anyway, I didn't pull out all the stops this year by planning all kinds of extra activities, but I was so pleased with how our first day went and the subsequent days since.  I see this as God's hand in our lives, providing us with exactly what we need to homeschool despite increasing our current ministry roles.  Check it out.

Normally I would have had our school table and school room completely prepped and ready to go the night before school started.  This just did not happen this year.  What with being trained for my new position as a class Children's Supervisor and preparing to train new Children's Leaders, I just did not find the time to do any of this until the morning of August 19th.  As it turns out, the boys don't really care if there are welcome signs or not.  They also don't know the difference between Mommy doing all this at 9pm or Mommy doing all this at 6am.  It's all the same to them.  Here is our table prepped and ready to go about two hours before the start of our first day.

It's hard to believe that this will be our fourth year doing this.  I love how much the boys have grown and learned. I also love how much the Lord has grown me and taught me through this journey.  That could be a whole other post.  I digress.  Here is our traditional First Week of School Sign.

Another First Day Tradition - The Grade Level Sign Picture.  First Grade, huh?  That's nuts.

The Third Grader.  Wow.

At the absolute last moment, and I mean less than twelve hours before our first day of school was slated to begin, Erik and I were able to escape to Fred Meyer together to grab First Day of School goodies.  This is pretty simple.  We like to give the boys something fun and cool on the first day that is also useful in their educational endeavors.  This year we found these cool articulated rulers.  Luke discovered he could do this with his.  Love it.

 It's a tie like the Daddy-Man wears.  Um...adorable.

 Paul follows suit and is equally cute.

The next bit of work is the First Day of School Questionnaire.  This fun little document asks the student to record his name, age, and numerous favorites including their favorite book from the summer and their favorite food (useful to Mommy when planning special meals during the year).

Luke's favorite book was The Happy Hollisters and the Whistle Pig Mystery.  Paul's favorite book was Mercy Watson: Something Wonky This Way Comes.  If you are unfamiliar with the Happy Hollisters, think 1950's siblings solving mysteries together and saying words like "swell" and "golly".  My Luke loves it.  Mercy Watson, on the other hand, is a pig living with people who think she's a person.  But she's not.  She's all pig.  It's highly hilarious, and Paul adores it.  

For the record, I think my favorite book from the summer was The World According to Humphrey, a tale told from the perspective of a classroom hamster who knows what's important in life.  I was clued into this title because it was on Sonlight's summer reading list.  I was pre-reading it for the boys, and now I'm addicted to the Humphrey series.  Yes, I will be reading them to the boys this year.  They aren't part of a curriculum but they are PERFECT for reading aloud.  Humphrey's narration is so engaging and lends itself to fun voices and lots of expressive reading.  I also remember my teachers reading to me after lunch each day all through elementary school.  Even though I spend about an hour reading subject matter to the boys, including literature, they cannot get enough of this.  Besides, I want an excuse to buy the Humphrey books and read all of them!  ;-)

 Working hard on their questionnaires.  Has anyone noticed that it works perfectly to have one leftie and one rightie?  I sit in the middle and nobody bumps elbows.  Sometimes it's the little details so perfectly orchestrated that remind me of how good God is.

 The teacher with the students

Once we finished our seatwork (the questionnaires, a little handwriting for Paul, some narration for Luke, and a math page for both) we moved on to our History and Read Aloud time for the morning.  This is when things got cool.  The first book for History this year is all about different peoples of the world.  The opening pages highlight all the many cool differences amonst the various cultures of the world.  One of the highlighted differences was currency.  Cue the Holy Spirit inspired moment.  I remembered that we have this rather large shoe box of foreign currency from all over the world in the basement, thanks to Dave and Lynne.  Miraculously, and that's no exaggeration, I was able to quickly find this box and extract it from one of our messiest rooms.  Are you seeing the goodness of God, people?  Because I never should have even remembered this box existed, let alone been able to lay hands on it quickly.  But both happened.  And the boys LOVED the results.  We read about foreign currency being a thing and then they got to touch it and sort it and talk about it and compare it.  Um.  I would love to take credit for this fabulous educational moment, but let's not kid ourselves.  Jesus Christ did this for me.  I've been busy preparing for ministry all summer.  He's going to take care of this homeschool thing for me.  I'll show up.  I'll open the books.  I'll make sure the kids are fed, but Jesus is going to be the one who provides all the cool educational moments this year.  I am grateful.

 The boys, the book and the coins.  So fun.

 This was Paul's favorite coin.  He says it's smooth like chocolate.  Check out the close up below.

It's a 1906 penny from Great Britain, I believe.  There might be some cool coin collecting in the boys' future.

And lastly, remember that last minute trip to Fred Meyer?  I really wanted to present the boys with something special for their first day of school.  I like their first day gifts to be imaginative and cheap.  Guess what Jesus provided?  These masks on clearance for $4 each.  What?!?  That's just awesome.

I'm super excited about this school year, not because I have it all together and feel like I'm really going to conquer the worlds of first and third grade with these boys.  It's more the exact opposite.  I don't have it all together this year.  My ducks are not only not all in a row, I'm thinking some of them have waddled away.  And it's going to be fine.  In fact, it's going to better than fine.  As I depend less on myself and more on the Lord Jesus Christ, He will not only provide what we need, but He will grow us and teach us together.  I love home schooling.