First Week of School

"For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice, and He preserves the way of His godly ones. Then you will discern righteousness and justice and equity and every good course. For wisdom will enter your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul." Proverbs 2:6-10

This is the verse we started with on Monday. It was very fitting! I'm reading a Proverb or Psalm each day to the kids and then we are working through Big Truths for Young Hearts by Bruce Ware. I'm really enjoying this time teaching them. I love the questions they come up with and I especially love seeing truths of God's Word come alive as we study together.

After taking a short summer break, the kids were a bit hesitant to start up again so soon, and I wasn't sure I would be ready in time. But, God is good! We had a great week. Despite the fact that I didn't have all my curriculum ordered yet, I was not stressed out. And after the first round of protests the previous week, the kids dove right into school and everyone proclaimed that it had been a great week. Here are a few highlights.

Emily is now an official kindergartner. She begged to do Math each day. I'm using Saxon K with her and she loves it. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is living up to it's title. She is loving that too. We're on lesson 37 since we began a few months ago and already she's starting to sound out words as she sees them around her. I'll follow up with Phonics Pathways. She loves to color and do "workbooks" unlike my older two. So far she's tracking with us as we read through Bible, History, and Pilgrim's Progress (in old English no less!).

Amy seems to have made the jump to being an independent learner much the same as Evan did at this age. I got a planner type book at Target for a dollar to write out her assignments for the week. She eagerly checked off boxes as she did her work. It was so exciting! She said her favorite part of school this week was reading a biography on Helen Keller.

Evan said it was all good. He had a lot of fun doing his science experiment in Exploring Creation with Physical Science (Apologia). I changed the way I scheduled things this year. All of the subjects that I read aloud to the kids or need to direct, I assigned a specific class time. The other subjects that Evan and Amy can pretty much do on their own with a bit of coaching, I left flexible for them to learn how to organize their time best. This has helped me to stay on track and make sure that I'm giving the spelling quiz each day. But isn't so rigid that we're run by the clock every 15 minutes. So far, it seems to be working out well.

Since I knew I was going to be busier this week teaching and organizing school, I tried something new and baked up a weeks worth of muffins and cookies on Saturday. I wrapped them up in groups for each day and put them in the freezer. When the kids needed a snack, I just pulled it out with no mess, clean up or baking required. With leftovers for lunch and cookies already made up, lunch was quick and easy too. If I can, I'll try and do this again. It made time in the kitchen more streamlined, and the kids loved having homemade goodies all week long.

We are starting early this year so we can end early. We're planning on taking the kids on a tour of the country next spring. We'll be driving up to Zion, over to Niagara Falls, down through Washington DC and then south to home. It seems far off in the distant future, but it takes a lot of preparation to make a trip like this a reality. My part so far has been to get school up and running. I'm thankful for the knowledge and understanding He gave us this week as we got started.