We had our first day of school yesterday. I got it in my head somewhere that I wanted to make it special, so I actually made some preparations. On Sunday evening Jim gave each of the children a father's blessing; I also requested one. Then after the kids went to bed I prepped our 'School Store'. This was an idea I'd thought out earlier in the afternoon. The idea is that there are certain school related activities that they can earn beans for all week, and then on Fridays they can redeem their beans for prizes. I made bean containers for each child and put the rules on the fridge. When they woke up yesterday morning, they were super excited! :)
The things they can earn beans for are: correct math problems, reading scriptures, reading non-fiction, and writing letters or stories. Alex can earn beans by listening to scriptures or non-fiction, and drawing pictures. The prizes are: small piece of candy, big piece of candy, extra bedtime story, staying up 1 hour past bedtime, park, drive with Dad, movie night, family bike ride, Dollar Tree trip, bike ride alone with Mom, McDonald's outing, and ice cream date with Dad.
They were pretty motivated by this yesterday; they all did extra things outside of our regular work to earn extra beans. Logan made an especial push; he earned 45 beans in one day!
We started kidschool with a family devotional. The kids were so happy to put that back into our routine. I hadn't meant to drop it during the summer, but I did. :( We had a prayer, some scripture time, and went through all 13 Articles of Faith to see how well they remembered them. They'd forgotten some, but did pretty well! (Last year we memorized them per the kids request.) Then we sang some songs before moving into academics.
This year my plan is to do math first since nobody is learning to read. So that's where we started after devotional. Both Annie and Logan aced their math review! Nice! While they did their reviews, I sat down with Alex to color. I'm not pushing him to learn anything academic this year, but just giving him some one on one attention that we call school. We do what is termed 'delayed academics' for preschool age. There are many studies showing that kids who don't have academic preschool do better in the early school years. Plus my experience has been that kids will learn colors, numbers, letters, and shapes naturally anyway. Why turn it needlessly into work?
After their review we made cookie dough for our math activity. They read and followed the recipe themselves. They also measured and converted it (we needed a double batch) on their own.
The cookies served a double purpose. We worked on fractions, multiplying, and following directions. Then that evening we took them to our neighbors to introduce ourselves (and to say hello to the ones we'd already met).
After math we did a second project which overwhelmed me and served as a reminder for why we never have more than one project per day. Energetic and enthusiastic children are great, but when all want to help and you have a tiny counter space it can quickly become crazy. Nevertheless, we opened a science kit the kids had been given and started building a volcano.
After our volcano building, we had lunch and then I read out loud to everyone for a while. The kids were on their own after that. They did their own reading mixed with playing as they desired for the remainder of the afternoon. It was really a very good day.
Today we had a library day for school. I LOVE our new library and I felt we had a really successful time finding quality books today. Yeah!
Logan spent his time reading in the aisles.
Annie and Alex chose books to bring home. Then since the library is still new to us, they were excited to play.
After we came home Logan dumped the books and has been reading ever since. I seriously doubt he'll stop before bedtime. New books are always super engrossing.
Annie has also been reading for several hours.
This is how Logan felt about something he read in one of those books. It was too strange for him. Funny guy.
Our first two days were positive, but I can tell it's going to take a little while to get into a good rhythm now that we have the 'baby element'. I felt rather busy juggling little miss Abigail with our other activities yesterday. Today was fine, but library days are always our easiest days. I'm excited to be back into our normal routine, though. I think it's been a relief to all of us.
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