First Day of School

For whatever reason I always write down what our first day of school was like.  It has been kind of fun to read back through those posts and see what we were doing and how we handled each new year.  So another year begins…

7:11 My alarm goes off.  I don’t get up.

7:17 E wakes up.  Now I have to get up.  I nurse him in bed and try to prolong getting up for real now that a warm body is back asleep next to me.

7:40ish D comes in.  I leave him with E and set out bowls for breakfast while trying to rouse the other two.  We seriously need to start going to bed earlier at night.

8:05 I take a quick shower while telling the boys to hurry up and eat their cold cereal because for some reason we thought that starting school wasn’t enough for this week and maybe we should start another session of swim lessons at the same time.

8:40 Leave for swimming and discover some of our friends at the pool so I have another mom to talk to for half an hour (during which E sits surprisingly still on my lap.)

9:45 Get home from swimming and change clothes while waiting for DH to come home from work to give us father’s blessings to start the year off right.  Dad comes home, now we can start!

10:30 We take first day of school pictures then we can start scriptures, but no…everyone’s hungry.  Graham crackers and milk all around.

10:45 We talk about the KJV version of the Bible and the fact that it is 400 years old this year.  The boys start an English Bible timeline while I introduce our Old Testament studies and we learn about the books of the OT (which books are the law, history, poetry, and prophets), review what the topical guide and Bible dictionary are, learn how to use the gazetteer, and talk about the importance of the OT in helping us come to Christ.

We have a good discussion as E empties the entire drawer of dvds around us.  He’s kind of ornery this morning.

11:30 After finishing the timeline project, D does Writing with Ease day 1 copywork, math, and a 3-minute grammar lesson on nouns.  C and A do their math, and E plays with a trickle of water in the kitchen sink which may be our best recommendation for toddlers yet!  He thinks it is just fabulous.

12:05 With nothing for lunch in the house (because we were out of town Friday and Saturday) we decide to go to Noodles and Co. for macaroni and cheese.  We normally go to Lamb’s as a first day of school tradition, but DH is unable to come and I am not up for going alone.  Noodles is insane though and it takes forever to get our order.  E is fussy the entire time we are in line, so we end up taking our food home to eat in peace and quiet.

1:00 Back home for a picnic in the living room.  D thinks we must watch a movie if we’re having a picnic (where did that idea come from?) and after I nix Thomas and the Magic Railroad, they watch a dvd on the presidents that’s been sitting here for a couple weeks.  I feed E and put him down for a nap.  Thankfully he goes to sleep easily.

2:00 C does Writing with Ease while D is very good at convincing me that he does not need a reading lesson today.  Then I spend over 30 minutes with A explaining how his science, history, literature, and writing programs will work this year.  He is slightly overwhelmed at the step up in expectations so I tell him I’ve spent several weeks at least trying to wrap my head around 5th grade.  I think I need to go back to 5th grade myself.  (In fact I’m planning on it in several subjects.)  He’s excited though and wants to jump into history.  I’m ready to quit for the day, but we all read the Story of the World “What is history?” section and D narrates back to me.

3:00 C and D make their first lapbook element for their Story of the World lapbook.  A starts work on Writing with Skill day 1 and painlessly comes up with a beautiful narration for a change.  I like this program!  I also like the suggested rubric for evaluation.  A then wants to start his first MapTrek map and quickly realizes it just isn’t big enough for all the things that need to be labelled. (Perhaps we need to work on writing smaller?)  I find him a large printable wall map and is utterly thrilled to begin again.  I’ve never seen a kid so excited by maps.

Learning how to use a gazetteer earlier in the day comes in handy as he needs to find the Beaufort Sea.  Of course the atlas that comes with that particular gazetteer still lists the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  That gives me a good laugh.

3:20 E wakes up and A is still going strong.  C and D are playing in the living room.  The mail comes with our last package of school books: a Latina Christiana workbook for C and the Encyclopedia of Nature.  Also another Netflix comes: Poirot.  I know what I’m doing tonight!  I try to return the dining room table to its pristine state.  I don’t quite succed.

4:15 We want to go to the park when we realize no one has practiced piano yet.  C begins and it’s like he’s never read treble clef before.  We endure together until 5:00 when DH comes home and offers to take everybody on a walk to the grocery store and the park for me.  I try to relax and read Little Women while they’re gone and realize I’ve been going going going so much for the  past couple of weeks trying to get ready for this one that I have a hard time stopping to do something fun, for myself.  I need to work time to just “be” into my days.

6:00 They come back and we fix leftovers from our weekend family reunion for dinner while A practices piano.  We eat and everybody pitches in with their kitchen jobs and we try to clean up the living room that looks like a tornado blew through.  I also try to find all the pieces to my magnetic chess board on the fridge that E figured out how to fling around the kitchen at some point in the afternoon.

7:30 We finally begin family home evening, discussing a talk from general conference.  We also try to sing the “The Books of the Old Testament” song in the Primary songbook.  It is incredibly difficult with that melody though.  I’m going to have to work on it a lot.

8:08 We try to have family prayer but three of us have the uncontrollable giggles for some reason.  We are finally able to calm down and everyone goes right to bed.  They are tired!

I am tired!  DH and I veg on the couch and watch our movie.  Long day!  But pretty good.  And we’ll be right back at it in the morning.