First Day of School

So it's upon us! The start of another school year. Matthew and I went out by ourselves yesterday for a special shopping trip for some last-minute school supplies. It's rare to get out with any of them, let alone one-on-one time with them since Daddy's working 6 and 7 days a week now. So we enjoyed it and tried to make the most out of it. Got some good deals, too!

The kids were very eager to get started this morning.

We read the creation story this morning and made a melted-crayon earth to mark the beginning of our timeline.

They enjoyed their rug time reading with the Boxcar children and acting out the chapter with the little "dolls" they had made last week. The girls need lots of work on listening and not interrupting, so we're trying to focus on that during rug time.

Our science reading was about where rain comes from. After each part, Matthew would color the corresponding part on his water wheel.

When he was finished he put his two pieces together and could spin the back one to see the water cycle in action!

The girls did some freestyle coloring during all of this.

Then we took an impromptu trip outside to check out where the rain water on our street goes.

We also made a rainbow on the driveway with a glass of water. After this picture we got a really good one with bright colors. Ashlyn was the most fascinated with this experiment, while the others were more excited to run around the yard

They were excited about their new (cheap Target find!) lunch items.

Thankfully Andrew took a good morning nap today! Once the girls went down for their rest time, Matthew did his spelling work. It's supposed to take him a week to learn the words, but he spelled every one of them 100% correctly the very first time I said them. I'm really trying to find a good Language Arts fit for him but it's not working too well! With Sonlight, the grammar is way above his head while the spelling and reading are beneath him. We'll keep trying to find a good fit.

First Day of School

Today was Matthew's first day of school. He had so much fun! When he first woke up, he wanted to play a game. I told him I would set the timer and he could play his game until the timer went off, but when it went off, we would stop the game and start school. I set the timer for 30 minutes. I figured I could do some devotions and tend to the girls while he played his game. About 8 minutes into the game he came in and said, "Did the timer go off yet?" He was ready to start!

We did the entire day's assignments for Sonlight Core B. Mostly this consists of reading stories from lots of different books. He also began memorization of a new Bible verse and we made up little motions to help him remember it. Each time I'd finish a story or something I'd ask him if he wanted a break. He always said no, that he wanted to keep going. I did set the timer for 30 minutes and we took a break any time it went off. He was fairly attentive, though obviously got distracted at times. I think as we go on that his favorite will probably be the Science book - it looks great!

His favorite part today was Developing the Early Learner. His biggest struggle is fine-motor skills, so I was encouraged that this was his favorite. Today's assignments in the book involved drawing lines and coloring pictures. He also did a page in his Handwriting Without Tears book.

For a craft, he made some Easter cards. I gave him two circles, a triangle and a rectangle and showed him how we could make them into a chick. He enjoyed using the glue stick He then drew legs, eye and beak, following my directions on where to put them and how to do them. On the inside of the card, he drew a cross (empty, of course!) and "signed" the card with an M, the letter he most recently learned how to draw (and the only one he knows, other than "O"). He said it was an M because Mommy and Matthew made the cards together. Of course, all I did was give him the shapes and show him how to place them, he did the rest!

For math, we played "Go Fish" and "Steal the Pack" to practice pairs and matching. While we were getting dressed we practiced ordinal numbers ("What did we put on first?" "Which piece of clothing was third?") We also watched Mathtacular together (he LOVES that DVD!) and made our own "Wormholes and Warp Drives" game which we played until he got to 100 and won!

He flew through his reading. I think it will be several lessons before he's challenged by it, but that's okay. He was even able to answer some reading comprehension questions, which I thought was great.

It was a fun, but exhausting day!