Today was our first day of school. I’ve spent LITERALLY hours planning and preparing, compiling, reading, and gathering supplies. Home educating is NO JOKE.
Our day began before 7am with Maggie arriving in our room to announce that she was ready for school and ready to celebrate Poppy’s birthday. She checked several times on the tiny little hamster, hidden away in the laundry room for Poppy’s birthday surprise. She quietly dressed, made her bed, checked on the hamster again, did a few penmanship pages and helped get breakfast going. Poppy straggled in about seven and after initial good morning hugs and birthday spankings, I sent her off to get dressed and make her bed. Next came Jack, scratching and bleary-eyed, ready for whatever. After asking him to get dressed a few times, he scuttled off and returned shortly after in his day clothes.
Did I mention that Calvin was home today? And that every school day would run so much smoother if he was home to prepare breakfast, clean up breakfast, make lunch, clean up lunch, read chapters, distract Jack, help with maps and math lessons… I’m convinced it takes more than just one person to get it all done.
We were making great time! While Calvin cooked breakfast, opened Poppy’s big present (the hamster, Katy), read our bible lesson, discussed the verses, prayed for our day, read our poetry and worked on memorizing our first few lines, and read our puzzle for the day which we enjoyed solving together over breakfast. As soon as my maid, oops, I meant Calvin, finished up the kitchen, he joined us at the school table just in time to read our Civil War lesson and help map the Confederate vs Union States. Breezing right along we came to Science- Human Anatomy, and jumped right in to Ancient Civilizations and their superstitions and discoveries, Hypocratic Oath, and embalming of bodies. Oh, and a science experiment….
We’ve tackled grammar lessons, math lessons, literature, recitation, narration, math drills, phonics, Latin 2x, and practiced the habits of orderliness and promptness. And did I mention that salesmen showed up around 10:15 to sell us on a $3000 vacuum? That threw a little kink into our morning but my rug is clean and we basically made up for all the time we’d saved thus far having a second pair of grown-up hands involved. And, no, I didn’t get the fancy $3000 vacuum….
My favorite moment of the day was at lunch: after working with Jack on his letter of the day. “M” (and he’s only had two “letters of the day”- A and now M), I thought I would test his retention. At lunch I boldly announced, “Bonus question for Jack! What letter says “ah” as in apple?” He pointed his little finger in the air and quickly replied, “REFRIGERATOR!” (WHAT the HECK??) And we all giggled. But actually, he was seriously confused. So I said encouragingly, “No, Jack. What LETTER?” And his face cleared and he blurted out, again with the little finger in the air, “ONE!” REALLY? After the girls gave him ten minutes of hints, he never got it and I. gave. up. Shocking.
Overall, the day was successful and our week has gotten off to a promising start.