One week down, 511 to go...

Our first week of home school is over and it mostly went great. I only had one student drop out but she re-enrolled later that same day so I don't think it will hurt my stats. I am going to 100% graduation rate here.

The week started out great. Zoey woke up just as I was finishing decorating the dining room / play room / school room. She was sooo excited. Sierra was still sleeping so we got to enjoy some time just the two of us. She unpacked her bag of school goodies which also had a few surprises. One of them was her very own package of Tic Tac's, the candy. She and Sierra love them and she had been asking for her own. It was a BIG hit. I also got her a Leapfrog DVD called Letter Factory. Both of the girls love it and they are learning something so I don't feel too bad about them watching it. 

The school day starts at 9 am so that we have time for breakfast and a few chores. We had so much to do on the first day I just couldn't wait to get started. I took a first day of school picture.





We start of the day with the Daily Text and then went right for the new workbooks. Zoey was so ready to do them. She just didn't want to stop doing them. After some math, phonics, and writing practice we were off to outside play. Thankfully it has cooled down some here in the mornings so we could enjoy ourselves. We looked for signs that summer is ending. We found some leaves turning yellow and a few other things but the funniest thing to me was what Zoey was looking for. She wanted to find some animals getting ready to hibernate. I thought that was pretty cute.

After we came inside and had snack we started with our Book of the Week. This is taken from Five in a Row curriculum. This week's book is The Story About Ping. We will read the story every day, five days in a row and then do activities that teach different subjects.

Today is Monday so after we read the book we do a social studies activity. Zoey colors the story disk (round circle with a duck on it) and we find China on a world map. We find the river that the story takes place at, the Yangtze river. We learn that the Yangtze river is 4,000 feet long, is so wide in some places that you can't see the other side of it if you stand on the banks of one side and one in three people in China live on or next to it. OK so maybe I am learning more than Zoey - at least about China. 

Then we weighed and measured everyone. Well not me, just the students. Next we made hand prints and footprints. Zoey and Sierra thought it was so funny to have me put ink on their feet and then wash them in the sink. At some point Zoey also colored a small map of China and wrote the word China. She loves coping words. Mommy is getting pretty exhausted by this point and it is time to make lunch so they get to watch the new Leapfrog DVD Letter Factory.

Once Sierra is down for a nap Zoey and I read for a while. Daddy is home early and takes Zoey grocery shopping so Mommy can have a short break, shew! Later that day Zoey and I work one more thing. It is the manipulative of the week. I have had this manipulative set for a long time and Zoey and Sierra do play with them frequently but now we are going to focus on one set a week. This week's set was color cubes. Zoey and I really enjoyed the activities I had planed like measuring how many cubes long something was. Doing it at Sierra's naptime gave up quiet time to concentrate too.

Shown here with the highly valued Tic-Tacs

I was not sure how the manipulative of the week would go. I am glad we did it and I will continue to add it to our lesson plans. While there is value in workbooks I still strongly believe in hands on learning.

Tuesday started pretty much the same although Zoey and I were much calmer. Sierra is still trying to figure out where she fits into all of this. She loved walking to the pond to feed the geese. Of course none of the ducks would show up since that is what we are studying. The huge carp fish were the most entertaining. I didn't think we were ever gong to make it out the door to even get to the pond in the first place. Zoey demanded that we just play in the front yard and NOT go for a walk. Then she wouldn't put her socks on and so on. She finally ended up wearing socks and flip flops. It wouldn't be my choice but at least she had something on her feet. In the mist of her fit she said she would not be doing home school anymore!!! I ignored her. Drama queen.

For our Story of the Week we took on language arts. We discussed what a classic story is, what a fictional story is, and the repetition in the story. We did other stuff this day but I can't remember what anymore. We had to go to the grocery store and that ate up some time. Guess I better make a better list for Daddy next time.

Wednesday morning we had to go to the dentist. It takes 45 just to get there so by the time we got home I had to make lunch. We managed to get all of our school work done after lunch while Sierra napped. Wednesday is Art for the Book of the Week. We looked at the artwork in the book then experimented with our own colored pencil drawings. Zoey did some excellent artwork. Then we discussed how to draw water and motion in water. For example lines behind a duck to show movement. Then Zoey wanted to try the new paints we got last week. Just regular tempra paints, but new!

She painted Ping walking up to the boat and tried to make rose colored sun with ALL of the colors. Sierra had a blast painting when she woke up and had a lovely fit when I made her stop. The paper could only hold so much.

Back to the morning schedule on Thursday except morning outside play time was extended due to beautiful weather. We had a picnic snack outside. Everybody loved this. Thursday's Book of the Week subject is applied math. We counted how many ducks in Ping's family (48) using the color cubes. At some point during the day I traced the girls bodies on easel paper taped together to make it wide enough and they colored them. This is Zoey's. You will have to wait until I upload September's pictures to Shutterfly to see Sierra's.

I have Friday's planned to be light so that we can make up anything we missed and just have a break. We did get to work on something new though. Draw, Write, Now books are the coolest things. It shows how to draw something (we did the chicken) and has a few sentences to copy to go along with it. Zoey really went whole hog for this. I couldn't believe how she stayed in the lines for her writing. I didn't expect her to but she did. She doesn't have much, if any,  spacing between her words but that is ok. That just tells me more about how she is seeing text right now. We did the Book of the Week next. Friday - science. We did a sink or float experiment. We collected items from a list and then predicted if they would sink or float. Sierra made a huge splash with the can she put it. Next we took books back to the library and played at the park. We had a picnic lunch there and of course everybody loved it. Once back home we learned more about Ducks from our library books and worked on some stuff for our lapbook about Ping. More about lapbooks another time.

All week long we read so many story books with ducks as the main character. I am so glad our library system has online request and hold. It really makes my life so much easier. I can search online for books that fit my theme then request them. They pull them from the shelf for me and hold them until I come and pick them up.

Overall we really had so much fun. Zoey kept telling everyone she was doing home school and had new workbooks. Did we do everything I had planned? No. Was every moment rainbows and lollipops? NO! By the way Zoey became obsessed with the word lollipop this week and she must of said it 400 times. Was I the perfect mother who remained calm at all times and kept a wonderfully clean home? Absolutely NOT!  Do I still have doubts that I can do this? Yes. Do I still question if this is the right thing for our children? Yes. Was it worth every minute? Yes!

Sorry this has been so long. I did not intend it to be this way and I will never do such a long review of our week again. At least I know a few people who will love reading every minute of it. Thank you for staying tuned in. Please excuse any grammar, typing or spelling errors, it is 11 pm here and I am exausted and blind!