1st Day of School

Now that the first two weeks of school are behind us...I'm finally finding time to blog about the first day! Yes, it has been that hectic...but next week promises to be more calm. Good thing too, since we're already a little behind where I'd planned to be.

Anywho. First day. The girls were up bright and early and ready to start their new school year. Waiting for them on the kitchen table, as always on the first day of school, was a sign waiting to be colored. Crayons on the left for my little preschooler...

...and on the right for my big (holy cow, how is she in THIRD GRADE?!) girl.

They worked on their signs while I made breakfast - cinnamon rolls, which are a special treat. Special treats also being customary on the first day of school.  :)

After breakfast, the girls were finally allowed to dig through the drawers of their "workboxes." Ours might not be the exact workbox system (especially since they're not boxes at all, but drawers), but they work for us - and Rachael had specifically asked to use them this year. If you're not familiar with the concept of workboxes, it's essentially dividing your subjects into separate boxes (or drawers) and letting the child have some autonomy, as well as decision-making powers concerning the order in which subjects are done. For us, we always start the morning with our Bible lesson. After that, the girls are free to head for whichever drawer they choose. Not all subjects appear in the drawers every day. Sometimes there are special treats or games inside. And some of the subjects include a note or page marker so that Rachael can work independently, while other times, she needs my supervision. Here are Rachael's drawers:

The numbers on the right are attached to the drawers by velcro dots. When she finishes with that drawer, she removes the number and sticks it onto a laminated card...when she finishes four subjects, she gets to choose a "special" activity from a stack on the piano. It could be watching a TV show, playing on the computer, etc. She looks forward to her "earned" break time and being able to choose how to spend it...especially when mommy-imposed breaks usually mean chores to be done.  ;)

Rachael actually got a new set of drawers this year, and Milly inherited her old four-drawer set. Yes, I'm aware that the numbers are off. Actually, we're not at all sure where the number three is, and I've yet to work up the gumption to make a new one. So Milly just puts the number two where she wants it. She doesn't remove numbers as she finishes drawers anyway...nor does she have as much to do in her drawers. There's an Explode the Code workbook, math (counting, patterns, etc.) worksheets and Cuisenaire rods, coloring books about numbers and letters, that sort of thing. But it's SCHOOL, and she actually gets angry with me when she runs out of work to do before her sister does.

Here's Rachael working in her Bible study workbook...still in her pajamas, of course. They didn't bother getting dressed at all, actually, until it was time to go outside and take pictures with their signs. Yes, another first-day custom. In breaking with tradition, though, we did not take the pictures in front of the tree in our yard - which was busy being overrun by hornets. We headed up the hill to the side of the house instead.

Rachael ran out of steam on the last line of her sign, penciling in a conversation that the letters were having with each other instead of actually coloring them. So hers is pretty much impossible to read in pictures. You know what it says, though...and didn't Milly do a nice job?

Our first day actually went much longer than usual - we had started at around 9 a.m. and, after breaks for lunch, pictures, and her "earned" break, we didn't finish up until a little after 4. We wanted to explore every single subject that first day, and it took much longer than we'd imagined...thankfully, other days are much shorter.

Their first day of school ended with their last swim lesson. (Last in this series; I'm hoping to get them into another session soon.) Both girls did great with their lessons - Milly is especially fearless about jumping into the pool. Going under the water doesn't bother her a bit, whereas Rachael was always careful to point her chin skyward in an effort to keep the water out of her face. Both girls are swimming with floats and supervision, and I can't wait to see what they'll learn next.

The very last thing they did in their class was to move out of the small-ish therapy pool, and over to the big pool. There, they were led to the diver's blocks at the end of the pool (seven-foot water!) and told to jump in - with an instructor waiting to catch them, of course. This is where Rachael had a panic attack. Not only does she not like jumping in, but now she was jumping from much higher than just the side of the pool. After much reassuring, though, and holding the hand of one of her instructors until she actually jumped...she jumped. I was so proud of her.  :)

Unfortunately - having been standing right behind her sister and hearing the theatrics, Milly was not inclined to jump when her turn came. It took even more reassuring and persuasion to get her up on the diving block, and I had to stand beside her and hold her hand while she jumped - and she DID jump! But I didn't get a picture of it, and I hate that.

Next time, we'll let Milly go first and I'll have the camera ready.  :)

Coming soon: We Got Practically Nothing Done During Our Second Week of School, But That's Okay.

Getting ready...

The books are all ordered and should be here soon. I've stocked up on more notebook paper, pencils, glue and crayons than should be allowed. I've assessed the inventory of homeschool detritus hiding in the cellar and only have a few more small items to pick up before school starts on Monday.

I haven't cleaned off the full-to-overflowing bookcase in the kitchen yet, but hey, I have time.

I did pick up the last "big" homeschool item today - a seven-drawer thingamajiggy that will henceforth serve as Rachael's new workboxes (an upgrade over last year's five-drawer system.)

Milly made friends with it immediately. Why she felt compelled to dress it in apron, shoes, and Burger King crown is still a mystery.

As you can see, the shelving unit is pretty tall - as Milly is a bit of a giant herself, compared to most 3-1/2-year-olds.

I had actually gone into Big Lots to look for a plastic milk crate or two - the better to store the junk I have yet to clean off of the overflowing homeschool shelf. I quickly realized that I would be better off at Dollar Tree for plastic storage and was just heading toward the exit when I spotted the monster drawers. It was the only one left that had seven shelves, and it practically demanded to come home with us. Since we have more subjects this year than we have in years past, it really will be helpful to have around this year.

Haven't heard of workboxes? Well, here's a blog that explains it fairly well so I don't have to. I'll admit, I haven't bought the ebook that fully explains the creator's vision for workboxes ($21 for an ebook? I don't think so) but I've grasped the concept from what others have shared, and Rachael and I loved using them last year. However, last year they were upstairs in what I considered our school room - out of sight, inconvenient, and ultimately abandoned mid-year. This year, they're more centrally located...in the kitchen. Maybe not the ultimate in kitchen decor, but hey, we're a homeschooling family. There are going to be books everywhere until my last baby is off to college, and I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts - not hide it all away for the benefit of no one, since no one that I invite into my home minds looking at our homeschool stuff anyway.

I numbered the drawers this evening, but need to pick up some more velcro dots before my vision will be fulfilled...I'll share more about our system when it's ready to roll. At any rate, I decided that the BK crown was a nice touch, so I let it stay. ;)

Now that we've set a date for our official "first day", I'll admit that I can't wait to get back into our school routine. There's something about a pile of fresh, new, never-read and never-written-in books that I just can't resist. According to my tracking info from ChristianBook.com, tomorrow should be Box Day...I'll be feverishly filling in my lesson plan book for the next couple of weeks once everything arrives, and trying to resist the urge to start before Monday!

First Grade - Day One: SUCCESS!

 

Originally posted on August 17, 2009

 

Rachael officially started first grade on August 17! Even though I thought I had planned too much for our first day...it was an absolute success.

We started out with a breakfast of blueberry waffles. Absolutely essential to the learning process, you know. Then she decorated her "first day" sign and posed for a picture before getting down to business.

I'm organizing our daily lessons with "workboxes" - an idea stolen borrowed from a homeschooling mommy friend's blog. Someday, I'll actually read the book on how workboxes are supposed to work...but for now, a very simple version worked out quite well today.
 

Ignore the junk in the background. That room is a work in progress, after all. Anyway...each box has a permanent number (on the left) and a removable number, stuck on with velcro. Inside each drawer is one subject that we'll cover that day - everything that we need for that lesson is inside the drawer, down to pencils, crayons, etc.
 

As we finish the lesson in a drawer, she removes the velcro number and sticks it to these handy little holders. There are actually ten spots, so she gets two "extra" activities thrown into the mix. Computer time is shown here - she also has the option to watch one show on TV. I need to come up with more ideas. Want to see what was inside the drawers today?
 

Drawer #1 will always be her devotional Bible, along with the day's memory verse and words to whatever song she's learning that week. (Yes, she already knows "Jesus Loves Me", but this week she's learning the second verse. I'm also hoping Milly will pick it up from hearing her sister sing - goodness knows she's picked up every song that Dora sings quite well, so I'm sure she's capable.)

Drawer #2 held our math book today - only the teacher's manual, as we only did review of place values and addition. She did a full worksheet of addition problems and had no trouble with the adding - only remembering which direction to write her 2s, 5s and 9s. She thinks it's absolutely hilarious to write her 9 backward - making it look like a P - and then informing me that "OOPS, she just P'ed in her book again!" We'll be doing more adding tomorrow, only in columns instead of horizontally. And of course, more working on that pesky skip counting by fives.

Drawer #3 was Language Arts. LLATL is awesome in that it's broken down into daily lessons already - no planning needed. Today's lesson consisted of reading a poem, talking about it, underlining the nouns in the poem, deciding which sentence went with a picture, reading several short words, writing a sentence, etc. It didn't take long at all, and I'm really looking forward to doing more tomorrow!

Drawer #4 is a great example of what workboxes can be for bigger kids - a completely "do it yourself" drawer! Love this little lined white board we found in the $1 bin at Target. Stuck to it are a list of her eight spelling words for this week, with instructions to write them on the board. I'm loving the things she can do by herself and have me look at later!

Drawer #5 contains another stolen borrowed idea - the Nature Journal. The first item of business was decorating the cover. Then, she took her binder and colored pencils outside with instructions to "find something in nature and draw it." She chose to draw her pet box turtles, Ruby and Felicity. Wonder what she'll choose tomorrow?
 

Hmm, this drawer looks suspiciously like the last one. This binder, however, is for her unit study on The Book of Virtues. Once again, she decorated the cover first, and reviewed the vocabulary words (philosophy, development, disciple, passion, appetite and reason) that we started on last week.

Believe it or not, I was trying to start slow today...so drawer #7 was kind of filler. I finally printed out the information for her Girl Scout Shape Up! patch and started documenting her physical activity time. We got off to a good start by having a big ol' dance party in the living room for half an hour this afternoon. Gotta love the 90s music channel!
 

Finally, drawer #8 - which will always be the last drawer of the day and will always contain this little black and white journal. This is Rachael's "end of the day" journal. I'll start a few questions in it for her each day, and it will be up to her to finish them. Unlike in her workbooks, I won't be offering spelling help in her journal - I want her to write her answers the way she thinks they should be. Mostly, I just want to have these years from now to go back and see how cute her answers were. :)  Today's entry was as follows (my words beginning, the bolded words at the end are hers, spelling errors included):

"My first day of first grade was FUN.My favorite part of the day was drawing in my journal.
Tomorrow, I hope we do ART.
I am proud of myself for doeng it."

Okay, okay, I did help her with the word journal. She asked and said she really wanted it to be right. Besides, it was written right on the cover if she had thought to look. ;)

Once school was over for the day, us girls headed off to let my mom thoroughly spoil the grandbabies. Rachael got her choice of restaurants for dinner (pizza buffet at Cici's) and Gramma picked up all of the still needed school supplies from Target - down to a pink baseball and pink tennis balls to use as part of upcoming science projects. She also got a new movie (Barbie and the Diamond Castle) and book (Fancy Nancy - The Show Must Go On) from Gramma, who tends to go a little overboard but mostly justified it this time. In the interest of fairness, Milly also came home with a new book (DORA) and coloring pad (DORA) to help keep her busy during school time. :)

All in all, we had a great first day. We got so much work done in so little time, and Rachael absolutely loved the freedom of deciding which box/drawer would be opened next. The only big kink I still need to work out is finding more things for Milly to do during school time - sure, I could print out DORA coloring pages all day long, but come on. Even that will get old eventually. I assume. I recently exhumed Rachael's old PowerTouch Baby (the Fisher-Price version of the LeapPad) with all its books and cartridges from a tub of outgrown baby toys, and have it ready to go for tomorrow - maybe that will keep her entertained for a while. If anyone has ideas on how to keep a 1-1/2-year-old happy during school time, please share your insight with me