First Week of School

We began our school year this past Monday morning, and a rather monumental year it is for us.  Let me explain.  Although I have been homeschooling for awhile now, our youngest is now seven, the magic age for boys in our house.  At seven, you do seat work.  At six and five, you can come to the school table if you so desire.  Mom will have something fun for you to do there.  But if you prefer to sit on the carpet and play with LEGO, that is fabulous.  Or maybe you want to come to the table but prefer to simply color a picture or watch your older brother do his math.  Awesome.  At seven, all that changes.

Having said that, I realized about a month ago that this is the first year I would actually be homeschooling two children at once.  (Side Note:  The non-seat work subjects like science, history and read aloud are so engaging that neither boy has ever once willingly missed them.  At the same time, they share curriculum in these areas, so dual planning is never required.)  Anywho, I was a little nervous to see how all this would go down.

Monday morning, Paul was up early and ready to go!  He was pumped for his new adventure.  So, we started!  Paul did his First Day of School Questionnaire, his Writing With Ease assignment, his math assignment, and read his first reader in its entirety, followed by twenty minutes of keyboarding before 8:30 am, in true Bangsund fashion.  Luke was barely awake at that point.  When Luke finally joined us, he completed his First Day Questionnaire, his spelling assignment, a math assignment, a chapter in his reader, and his twenty minutes of keyboarding before 9:30 am.  Not bad.

We completed our day with Science, Geography, History, and Read Aloud on the couch, everyone's favorite time together.  All in all, it was a super successful and fun day.

I feel the entire week has been fabulous.  We will add in more seat work subjects in the coming weeks, eventually including grammar for both boys, spelling for Paul, and a writing component for Luke.  It will lengthen our school day to be about three hours total, giving us plenty of time for LEGO, playdates, and all the other fun adventures of being a kid.

Wanna see the pictures?  I knew you did.

 Our Second Grader - awesome gap included!

Our fourth grader (!) smaller sweet gap to the left of center

 Paul doing his first ever Writing With Ease assignment.

 Luke works in his cubicle while listening to classical music.  Yes, we rock.