School's in Session!

Well, there's nothing like ignoring your responsibilities by blogging about them instead!

I should be in the school room getting ready for our day tomorrow. But, I told myself that I would just sit down for a few minutes and answer emails. But, that was two hours ago. And, my inbox looked too daunting (sorry, friends, who are waiting for my response!) so I looked at a couple of homeschooling blogs. Which then inspired me to actually do my "first day of school" blog before the first week has passed.

So, instead of organizing for tomorrow (or emailing), I am blogging!

But, the good thing is, we are having homeschool outdoors tomorrow for a nature day. So, there's time for packing up the books later. It's one of the things I love most about this whole thing. :)

We began school last week on September 1st. This is funny for a couple of reasons. First, if you had told me two weeks ago (while I was still in Rwanda) that my school plans needed to be done by September 1st, I would have laughed...or cried.

It seemed unattainable then, seeing that everything was still packed in the box it was shipped in.

I had kind of thought we would start later this year, considering the circumstances.

But, these three girls are creatures of habit. (Don't know where they get that from.) And, they wanted to start on September 1st, just like we did last year.

So, it was set. We were starting whether I was ready or not! And, on top of that, Abby Kate wanted to be a full-time member of homeschool this year. So, I was planning for three instead of two, and trying to accommodate some of our curriculum for a pre-K student, while making some new lessons for her age as well! (She is so cute, by the way, with her own notebooks and journal. She really is way too big, and is such a good little student.)

In order for me to get something ready by September, the girls got to go shopping with Grandma for back to school clothes (thank you, Cheri!) and then, my amazing husband took the kids out all over town for a couple of days in a row so I could plan like a mad woman...and with that time, I managed to get the first 9 weeks done.

They also got to go on a fun scavenger hunt for their supplies with Dad. They had a few seconds to look at all the pictures I texted them...some were for serious supplies.

And, some were more fun!

(You gotta have PE options, you know.) Then, they had to find everything on their list.

They loved it, of course. And, Abby Kate especially loved the bouncy balls.

While they shopped and played and went to movies, I planned, and cut, and laminated, and planned some more.

My school room looked like this during that weekend:

And, I think I ate one meal a day. It was a "working weekend" for sure. :)

But, oh so worth it. I managed to organize a few new spaces, update our old spaces, get 12 notebooks emptied and reloaded, and bring in the new books and curriculum, ready for a new year.

I was getting so excited as I read through the material and planned our lessons. It is going to be a GREAT year with My Father's World. We are doing Exploring Countries and Cultures as our main curriculum for history/geography/science/Bible and it has already impressed us. We will be exploring various countries around the world, learning all about their culture and people (geography & history), as well as the biomes and ecozones of their land (science). But, what I really love are the Bible lessons that we will go through. We are studying Matthew all year, but we are also praying for each nation as we learn about native beliefs of various cultures, as well as missionaries who live and work in different places. We are truly seeing what it means to "go into all the world" and share the love of Jesus. I LOVE it. (And, I love that it's already written for me too!)

Today, we learned about how many languages in the world still don't have a Bible in their native tongue and how it changes their lives to receive a Bible and learn that there is One True God who loves them and wants to give them hope and a future. We also talked about how hard people work to translate Bibles. This was seriously something my kids had never even thought about. The idea that people would not have Bibles was just something totally new to them. There were some precious discussions around this, and I was thankful yet again that I get to spend my days doing this. It's so worth it.

My other favorite thing this year is Kendyll's business math, where she gets to run her own pet store, complete with ordering inventory, keeping account of her sales, paying bills, and creating her own name and logo. She even wrote a jingle for her store on the piano! I am so thankful for the "Critter Corner" pet store. We have had a whole different start to math this year because of it.

There is alot more I could say about curriculum. Language arts... spelling... French... typing... second grade readers. Lots of fun things that make my nerdiness come out like crazy. We are all excited about our lessons this year. But, I'll stop there for now, since I'm now totally on a tangent.

The first day of school was a fun one, although always a tiny bit crazy when you're the teacher. We left it pretty light on the academics, and I was so surprised to hear they expected to do more work! Never can tell which way it will go?

The night before homeschool was a school celebration of Mexican food and frozen yogurt...

and I layed out the surprises for the morning!

A craft project to make our journals and clipboards pretty...

And their new grades on signs for school pictures.

Of course, Carlie was not so impressed with her surprises, because they did not involve candy in any way. (Unfortunately for my children, we recently had to crack down on a few rules around here, and now most everything they used to think was their "right" has now been redefined as "privileges" they earn. Candy being one of those. And, "crack down on rules" is another way to say that all of a sudden some behaviors have been out.of.control around here and Mom and Dad were about to go CrAZy. Major boot camp has come to town in the Jacobs home.)

But, anyway, back to the first day.

We had our "to-go" breakfast of donuts and Starbucks. Funny, really, how backwards that tradition seems. I guess we should be having a homecooked breakfast on the first day. But, a drive thru to Starbucks and a stop at our neighborhood donut shop was a dream breakfast for all of us, so we went with it. :)

After breakfast, we did our school pictures. And, oh my goodness, how did my girls get THIS BIG???

Takes my breath away to see this girl. FOURTH grade?? Somebody stop her.

And, Carlie is my big second grade girl this year!

And, she is quite the studious girl. The first day, she asked me why she couldn't have a spelling list that day, and why we were "just talking about math but not doing any??" She got her wish the next day. I sure hope she keeps that eager spirit all year!

And, my, oh my. Katers is such a cutie this year.

She is VERY very proud to be a homeschooler. Officially. She says it multiple times every day, usually while hugging my leg. "I can't believe it that I'm in homeschool now!" That's what she's saying in this picture, actually. "I'm in homeschoool, I'm in homeschoool!"

Again, I hope that sticks.

For now, she has been quite a good little student, and does not quit until she has all of her items erased from her dry-erase-to-do list each day.

So, we finished the first school day talking about our geography curriculum, and beginning our "Children of the World" poster. We will add a new child to this poster for each country we study, and eventually their hands will connect all the way around the globe.

I can't think of a better thing to be studying for this little family. We're looking forward to a year full of fun.

(And, hopefully lots of learning too.)

We are so thankful for some cooler Texas weather too, which makes school at home so much better. PE time can be outdoors (we're working on volleyball skills right now!), school time can be outdoors, and--most importantly--play time can be outdoors!

Since we did NOT have cool weather the first two days of school, I made up a chore for them to do outside. They washed the cars and got all soapy and wet. It was great! They laughed and screamed and sprayed each other. All with the doors to the house closed. So I could pretend they were quiet for an hour. :)

All the fun that comes in a school day around here.

Meanwhile, this Mommy has now spent quite a bit of work time just talking about working. Oh well. That might be what tomorrow morning will be for!