The first day of school

Today we officially started our school year.. though we normally do some minimal things over the summer there is a distinct shift in our days when we start counting our days for records purposes.

5: 40 climb out of bed because I got VERY little sleep last night... sleep just eluded me, and dh agrees he had trouble sleeping as well. WE had some issues at church over the weekend, so perhaps we just had too much on our minds.
~Fix biscuits, some for dh and the rest for us. Tidy in Kitchen, and do morning routine.
7:00 wake kids and allow them to watch some TV to get going.
7:30 breakfast... for some reason the show Mallory was watching was off schedule and did not go off when I had breakfast on the table. I anticipate her getting grouchy at having to quit watching before it was over, but she was surprisingly understanding.
~Bible Reading in the Book of James and some discussion. Answered questions in Balancing the Sword Volume 1, which Mallory answered all of. The other two kids look too tired to care! prayer time and some discussions about mundane things... I love eating with the kids at the table.
8:00 Kids start their morning chores and I clean the kitchen. I am anticipating both of the girls not finishing their chores before I am ready to start some table time, but they both surprise me and even finish in time for a bit of free time.
8:30 start table time by discussing some independent work that Mallory and Daniel can do. Once they get started, I work with Sarah doing Math first. She surprises me again by remembering all of the addition facts from last year (hasn't learned them all yet) She needs some work with the subtraction facts that she learned, but I expected that. She is intimidated by subtraction and I am not worried about pushing her! We move from that to some simple spelling and phonics work in All about Spelling. Lesson went quick and smooth. LLATL is next and there is a LOT of sounding out short vowels words. She makes a comment about how much "reading" she has to do, so I consider skipping part of it, but she balks at the idea, so we do it all. When she is finished she gets a 20 minute break
10:00 Mallory fixes a snack for everyone... there are a few tears because her first pick for snack this week was celery with peanut butter and raisins but she didn't cut the celery last night as I reminded her to do, so she must settle for some crackers. She fixes the snack but I wonder if this will be a reason for her attitude to turn sour. She has struggled a bit during her math lesson while I worked with Sarah and I can see she is frustrated... her math break was too long and she and I both know it, but that is life eh? As she delivers everyone's snack and drink, I think that she needs a break from work, but she is one step ahead of me. She immediately lays on her bed for a few minutes and regroups... I am so impressed with her ability to manage her moods.. this year she has grown so much in maturity.
10:30 One on One time with Daniel. Mallory is back to doing independent work and I am worried that she is dawdling too much. I resist the urge to fuss or comment. Deciding to let her try to manage her time on her own. That is always the best decision but the hardest to do.
Daniel and I do some spelling , again with All about spelling. I realize that his phonics is shaky, even though he has had the most phonics instruction. Some of the sounds he makes to represent the phonogram needs work and he HATES to be wrong or be corrected. While the lesson is short, only lasting about 10 minutes or so, he is frustrated so we stop. He actually finished the lesson in less time than we allowed. On to Language arts. He does some copywork and I think he is taking too long. He comments that it doesn't feel like he is taking too long and actually he is probably right. I just don't have anything to do right now but wait on him, and watch Mallory amble around so it makes me nervous LOL. I apologize to him, we set the timer (more for me than him) and he sets to work. Sarah is ready to do some of the "fun" independent things so she works on Typing... doing more than one lesson, since it is new and somehow fun for her. She also labels a house drawing with her friends names. She also has short math page to do, but I don't hurry her to it. Daniel finishes his copywork and proofs it, then I check it and we make the final changes. We work on one last thing in Language Arts and then he starts a word search that is an enrichment in his LA book. He is almost finished with his independent work , just having one short thing to do, and Mallory walks in and very proudly announces that she is "done before lunch" the glow in her eye blinds me so I tell her I am not ready for her one on one time with her even though I am. I give her and Daniel each 15 minutes of free time and I straighten the kitchen.

During the morning we had two phone calls. My mother in law also stopped by (bless her precious heart) to pick up ALL of my dirty laundry since my dryer is still broken, she insisted on helping out by washing them on her day off today. All my arguments don't work, and really it is such a HUGE help that I stop fighting.
11:45 The Kids come in from outside after their break. Daniel finishes his work quickly and then spends time playing. Sarah works off and on on her math sheet, singing and playing. I do some spelling with Mallory once again, using All about Spelling. She is self motivated to learn to spell this year so the lesson goes extremely well. She is working hard to make the correct phonogram sounds and I am hopeful that we can help her spell better since she is so motivated. We then move to her Language arts (LLATL) and she works on her copywork. The lesson calls for dictation, but I much prefer to use the passage as copywork. I ask her if she wants me to sit and read the passage aloud as she uses her book to copy like we did last year. She gives me a crooked grin and says no. AHA!! she has figured out that she can do it faster on her own. Good for her. I fix lunch and putter around in the kitchen while she works. Daniel is fiddling around with this and that but staying close by me so he can talk about the myriad things going through his mind. I gently remind him that Mallory is still working but she insists it is not bother her to have him jabbering in the same room so he stays. He has been a FOUNT of new ideas lately and can't seem to get them all out of his head fast enough. Sarah is still singing and playing mostly alone.
I fix the kids some bagel pizzas and myself a salad.
12:30 lunch time. We listen to Spanish while we eat. The Easy Spanish has a story that is a mix of English and Spanish and a vocabulary track. We all see if we can remember what any of the words mean... Mallory knows more than any of the rest of us...she eats quickly and then works on her copywork. ON HER OWN!! DURING LUNCH! Gasp.. hm what happened to my dd over the summer? Maybe it's a dream but don't wake me.. she has handled herself very well today.. finished in a good time frame without any prompting and is trying to complete her work during lunch. Daniel spends the rest of lunch time sharing an idea that he has... but I can't remember what it was. I promise I listened, but it has slipped my mind! We all work to clean up the kitchen. Then we get a 30 minute break. The older two go outside, and Sarah plays on webkinz. Periodically Mallory or Daniel will come in to ask me something "can we go around the block" or "who was those two guys who traveled up the Mississippi river then tried to find a better way to get across the country"? But they quickly disappear back outside. I fix myself some tea and sit and browse the paper. Mallory runs in very excited because it is raining down the street and not at our house yet.. Sarah goes outside with the other two to watch the rain as it makes it's way to our house. Raincoats are dug out of closets and the rest of their break is spent outside getting their feet wet!
1:30 5 minutes math practice for older two and math copywork for youngest. Daniel decides to check his math practice page with a calculator and gives himself a 100 percent for getting all 36 addition problems right. He is in heaven with a calculator in his hand so he plays with it during our Oral reading practice. The next 15 minutes are spent with our McGuffey readers. Each child read a very short passage aloud to the rest of us. Mallory and Sarah LOVE this time. Daniel tolerates it. 5 to 10 minutes on geography. The kids all like using their place mats to locate the state or country we talk about. Today it is Hawaii and Alaska. We just discuss the capitol and locate the state on the map today.. we'll read a bit about them later in the week.
1:50 Read aloud for history. OH! WAIT! I forgot to put supper in the crock pot so I take 15 minutes to do that now, then onto reading Pearl Harbor attack . The kids each find something to do with their hands while I read. Mallory draws with pastels.. a rainy day picture complete with our dog splashing in a puddle. Daniel plays with some stress putty and unbent paper clips. Again, he is as happy as a lark! I have no idea what all that stress putty became today, but I'm sure I'll hear about it soon if his recent chattiness continues. Sarah does some finger painting (or rather hand painting!), mostly just painting a while piece of paper completely pink. After the read aloud I ask Daniel to orally narrate what we have read. He does a good job and remembers some key points from the reading. Since the book was Daniel's subject choice I don't ask the girls for an oral narration and Sarah surprises me by insisting on telling me about the chapter's we've read. She did not like narrations last year but she enthusiastically explains the part of the reading that impressed her the most.
We move to Science and do some reading in Usborne Mysteries and Marvels of Science from our NOEO Chem II. The older two do a notebook page for their science notebook and both of them seemed to be excited about the results. The reading was about scientific method and Theories, which got Daniel chattering again... he has LOTS of theories that he NEEDS to share. When they are done with their notebooking each child finishes something short that they left undone. Daniel finishes everything first and starts on an "experiment' making a water dispenser out of a small glass jar and a hollow q-tip stick he works on it for almost 2 hours. Sarah decides to make the same "experiment" but finds some makeup we bought for play in the bathroom while looking for the q-tip stick and plays makeup and dress up instead. She proceeds to cover here face in gold glitter powder. She is in there for over an hour and comes out covered in the stuff. Mallory wonders if we can sell her and net a small fortune! Seriously she is COVERED in gold glitter.. too cute! Mallory proofs her copywork then heads back outside, her favorite place to be. Sarah meets her out there for a walk with their umbrellas and Daniel gets a book on tape out to listen to while hangs out in the living room.

Supper is in the crock pot and the kids are each happily doing their own things. I can not believe what an incredibly GREAT day we have had. I anticipated it NOT going very smoothly, but it has. I am glad because I have been emotionally exhausted since Saturday and today has boosted my spirits. I forget how fulfilling this is when it doesn't always go so well. But today I remember why I home school.