Eureka Homeschool: First Day of School 2012-13 School Year!

Our First Day of School (2012-13)

We did it! We managed to kick off our school year this morning and everything went well. The first day always makes me a little nervous because I think if it goes badly, then it will set the atmosphere for the rest of the week, month, YEAR!

No pressure.

Heh.

No worries though, we did great. The most important part was that nobody complained! Yay! I hate dealing with negative attitude. It just ruins the fun. This gives me hope that we have set the expectation of doing school in the mornings. That there will be no excuses to go play or do the work later and that a positive attitude will help us all have fun.

I am hoping (against all reason) that we won't have as many interuptions as we did this morning...i.e. Noah and Linus pulled out their entire bag of tricks... diapers, bottles, messes, crying, juice refills, the whole nine yards.

I decided at the last minute (yesterday) to allocate half of the baby room for school. I have been itching to take over that room for this purpose for a while. I am pretty sure Linus won't mind. He has another crib in his brother's room that he can transfer to if need be. Eventually he will be moving in there and this will be a full time school/art room.

After our work this morning, Me and Allie decorated the school side of the room to be more cheery. You can see the difference in the photos.

What we did today: (as an example of what we will be doing every day)-

Pre-school:

This was Allie's first day of real work. She listened to her nursery ryhmes and the scripture, sang her song of the week and did a few pages in her pre-Explode the Code book. I read a few pages of the Berenstein Bears Book of Science and Nature (a segment about seasons). I have a story from a reader for later today, I may save it until bedtime.

First Grade:

Micah had several things to do. First, we listened to the song we are supposed to learn. It's Psalm 1 set to music. We have six weeks to learn it. I don't like the song quality from the CD though, the music is louder than the words. It is very difficult to understand. We read the first few verses.

Then we read the first lesson in a book called 'Leading Children to God' and he answered questions after.

After that, we read our Science reading (about Animals and their habitats) and he answered questions after.

Then he did a page from his Explode the Code while I worked with Allie.

Then he did some copy work and read a small story.

Together we read a few pages from a book about different countries and peoples all over the world.

Then I gave him his Math worksheet which had some clock work and some addition and subtraction of double digit numbers. He has been doing his Horizon math workbook throughout the summer along with Explode the Code, so he isn't starting anything new here... he breezed right though it.(Which is so awesome because usually he dawdles until it drives me insane!)

Later tonight, we will read a couple chapters of 'Charlotte's Web' as our read-a-loud work. We are also finishing 'House on Pooh Corner'.

More: We have some more memory work to do (some flash cards and songs to learn, but I will be introducing those later in the week) He also will be having a Science experiment each week and a DVD segment that goes along with it. His daddy has decided to do that with him one night a week for fun.

Here are my wonderful students and our new 'classroom':