We Did It! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

(Matthew took this picture this morning before we left to take him to school).
One day Kaitlin and I were running errands.  (Back in the glorious day of running errands with one child).  And she was sitting behind me singing, "We did it!  Hooray!  Hooray!!  HOORAY!!!!!"  I'd yell "Hooray" with her and I was just laughing--as she kept doing it over & over & over...it never got old for her.  :)

So that's how I feel today.

We did it! Hooray!

We had our first day of Homeschooling. And today, it was homeschooling in the loosest sense of the word.  We just kept it simple to get an introduction to school at home--learning rules and routine, etc. 

After we dropped off Matthew the kids did puzzles while I got things ready to go for school and remembered that I forgot to make Matthew's lunch! So we had to stop and take his lunch to school and then come back and start school again. :) Clearly, I'm new at this.

Then while Kaitlin colored, Andrew and I worked on writing his name, and the number 9. We did a very short activity for the number 9 and by the time we finished that he was at his limit. Andrew does not love sitting at the table and doing school work. But he is curious and likes to learn.

Then we had our version of "circle time". I helped out enough in the kids' pre-school classes to know the routine for that, so we did the calendar, the weather, read a story, talked about the letter G and we also worked on a bible memory verse.

It went pretty well. Kaitlin was NOT happy that we couldn't just keep putting numbers on the calendar....

You can see the children's mats in the above photo. I got them at IKEA. A heart for Kaitlin, a car for Andrew. One of the biggest things we're working on with Andre to prepare for Kindergarten is just how to keep that little body of his in his own space. It's not as easy as it sounds! :) (For either of us!)

Here is Andrew checking the weather....

"SUNNY!"

(We don't often get to say that beautiful word).

And during the story I would read a page and then say,

"Criss Cross Applesauce, Andrew and hands in your lap, please."

Read another page and...

"Criss Cross Applesauce, Andrew and hands in your lap, please."  :)

I was sort of expecting today to be the exciting honeymoon day of school for the kids. I think the excitement wore off for Andrew a little faster than what I was anticipating. Clearly tomorrow we're going to have to step it up with some cutting and pasting. :)  And I'm going to need to do some more research to figure out how to make this a little more directed and interesting for all of us.  I'm definitely seeing that I need to feel purposeful for each day and I'm definitely not there. And we need some excitement if we're going to make this work.  I can see that this could get boring really quickly if I don't put some effort into making learning fun.  BUT, I can also already tell that I'm really going to love this focused time with the children. I think it will be good for them, and I really enjoyed doing school with them today.
And thank you friends, for the kind encouragement.  I appreciate it.
And now we're going to have some lunch and take a Field Trip to Home Goods. Because, like I said, Learning should be fun! Right? :)