First Day of School (kind of)

I have decided to homeschool the kids.  Some days I feel like I'm completely crazy.  And some days I feel like my kids are missing out.  But then I remember why I chose to do this and I'm okay again.  I was feeling kind of sad this morning as I checked facebook and saw all of the first day of school pictures of my friends kids.  I had already told Adeline we would start "school" today and so I decided I would pay extra careful attention to what we did today and document it so I can see that even though the kids aren't actually in (pre)school, they are still learning a ton!  So here is our day:

I wake up at 8:30 and panic a little because the kids haven't woken me up yet.  But then I hear Adeline in the kitchen and realize that is what woke me up.  She is eating the cereal I left out on the table for her last night so she could eat her breakfast without waking me up.  I check my emails and browse facebook before getting out of bed.  This is when I see all of the back to school pictures and feel a little sad that we are doing things differently.

8:45 I drag myself out of bed as Adeline goes on and on about a batter she wants to make with syrup and powdered sugar and cereal crumbs.  I go through about 5 different reasons in my head that I can give her for why we are not going to make that batter and then in the spirit of starting homeschooling, I say "okay, we'll see what we can do."

Adeline wakes Bobby up (aka unlocks his door so he can come downstairs.  I have no clue when he actually woke up) and we have cereal and bananas.  Adeline starts telling me everything she needs for her recipe and I help her pour her ingredients in.  Bobby finishes his cereal and wants to make a recipe too, so I help him.  Adeline wanted to add chocolate to her batter so I explained the difference between cocoa powder and chocolate chips.  She chooses cocoa powder so it can dissolve into her batter.  She decides to freeze hers and see if it turns into chocolate ice cream.  Bobby adds peanut butter to his and eats the whole thing.  I gag a little in my mouth because it looks disgusting.

Adeline sees a lizard on the screen door and we google it and find out it is a blue tailed skink.  She goes outside to try to catch it but it gets away.   She says she saw a snake behind the table outside and we discuss why it is not okay to crawl around looking for the snake. (We have seen copperheads in our neighborhood and saw a garter snake on the porch the other day.  Our neighbors saw a rattlesnake in their backyard, so I feel this lesson is very useful and productive).

We decide to release the 4 butterflies Rob and Bobby caught yesterday.  The kids stick their hands in the butterfly net one last time to let them crawl on their fingers and then we release them.  We see a huge grasshopper on the side of the house.  We try to find a black and yellow swallowtail butterfly that we saw flying in the yard earlier, but we can't find it.

Adeline starts asking when we are going to start "school."  I smile because I realize we've already done a science experiment, identified lizard species, observed butterflies and grasshoppers, and learned about snake safety and its only 10 am!  The only thing I had actually planned for school was a workbook page for Adeline and practicing letters with Bobby, but I know I can just wing it for everything else.

I take a first day of school picture.  They would not hold still, so its hard to read the sign.

I decide to print the kids some calendars to start our school and teach them about the days of the week and months of the year.  Something is wrong with the printer so we troubleshoot for about 10 minutes and finally figure it out and print our calendars.  Bobby loses interest in the calendar "lesson" after about 2 minutes but Adeline seems to enjoy it.  It is good for her to practice writing her numbers.  We practice letters a lot, but usually not numbers.  I let the kids put a sticker on today's date and that is the most exciting part for them.

Next comes play time and snack time.  Adeline draws on the white board and Bobby plays with his food.  Adeline thinks she needs a nap until the next lesson so she goes up to her room and pretends to sleep.  Bobby keeps asking "where's my Adeline?"  I use this time to type up our morning so far and then we start our next lesson.

I bought some workbooks for Adeline at Costco the other day and I'm really excited to start using them with her.  I downloaded some new educational apps for the ipad so Bobby plays those while I help Adeline with the first page in the Mazes book.  She did great.  The hardest part was having her write her name and date at the top, but its good practice having her write the letters small and fit them on a line.  After Adeline's "lesson" she gets to play ipad and I practice identifying letters with Bobby on the white board.  He likes to say "I don't know" when I ask him letters, even on ones I know he knows so we don't get very far.  He loses interest quickly and just wants to be silly, so I let him.  He's 2 and being silly is more important than knowing his letters.

After our lessons Bobby wants to have a dance party so I turn on some music.  Adeline requests Disney music and we dance around a little.  Then "A Whole New World" comes on and we all pretend to fly while we dance, and its a good chance for the kids to listen to the music and move their bodies to the music.  The next song that comes on is "Be Our Guest" and we decide it has a good rhythm for skipping so I try to teach the kids to skip.  They don't quite get it, but Adeline decides that galloping also fits with the music so she gallops while I skip and Bobby tries to skip, but mostly he just runs around.  A slow, calm song comes on so I decide its time to calm down and get comfy for some stories.

I read the kids 2 stories, and again, Adeline is interested, Bobby is not.  Then I tell them it is time for silent reading.  I put some very quiet classical music on and tell them to choose some books and get cozy.  I get my ipad and read my book.  Sometimes I let Adeline come downstairs during her quiet time and read silently with me, so she knows what to do and looks at a couple books quietly.  Bobby climbs on my back and tries to take Adeline's books and then plays tinker toys.  Maybe he'll catch on soon.  He makes silent reading time very difficult, so I only get through 3 pages in my book before I give up.

I look at the clock and I can't believe how fast the time went by.  Its already lunch time!  I make the kids some pb&j sandwiches, which Adeline requests I cut into circles.  They also eat a frozen gogurt and I make myself a black and blue salad with the leftover steak from our fajitas last night.  The kids play together nicely after lunch pretending to dress up the stuffed animals so I take a few minutes to sit down and type some more until the kids go for nap time (Bobby) and quiet time (Adeline) at 1.  Adeline is still in her pajamas and Bobby is just in a diaper.  Adeline likes to take her clothes off when she plays upstairs and Bobby's were gone a long time ago, so I don't see any point in getting them dressed yet.  At least not until we leave the house.  Sometimes I feel like my whole morning is just a big countdown until nap time, but I enjoyed playing with the kids and teaching them this morning.  Adeline says she wants to do school everyday, but I know thats not going to happen so I tell her we can do it a couple times a week.  We have a playdate at a pool tomorrow and they get to go play at Grandma Sherie's house on Wednesday, so maybe we'll do this again on Thursday.

Looking back at our morning, I realize that the kids definitely learned more doing the stuff I didn't plan ahead for, so I'm happy with how our morning went.  I'm not going to stress over homeschooling any certain way or with a specific curriculum yet, but just have fun with them like we did today.  I'm not worried about socialization too much either.  I plan to go to the gym this afternoon, so they'll get to interact with other kids at the child care there.  And now that the kids are quiet, I think I might change out of my pajamas and wash my face.  Well, at least I'll wash my face!  And then I can get back to reading my book!

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful.  I finished my book while the kids were napping (not really) and playing upstairs (Bobby is fighting his naps lately!  I'm not ready for 2 none napping kids yet!!).  Luckily they played together pretty well today.  I let them come back downstairs at 4 and then it was snacks and netflix shows for the kids.  Adeline did some drawing and they both played on the iPad some more.  Then it was off to the gym.  The kids love playing in the kids club and we met Rob there after work, so its a nice break for all of us.  After the gym we came home and the kids drew pictures with Rob and he helped them practice spelling their names while I made dinner (chicken picatta!).  By the time we finished dinner it was already 8:30 so the kids went straight to bed!  We usually have them in bed before 8!

So this ends my play-by-play of our first day of homeschooling.