Back to homeschool!

Man, it has been a rough summer here.  Not having our routine in place has definitely made this an interesting time for me, especially with having to do the juggling that came with Scott not working his normal shifts at work (he has worked less this summer, which has made for a lot of tension at home as we worried about being able to work things out financially).  His hours have started to pick up a little bit thankfully the last couple weeks, so I decided it was time to start settling back into our regular routines.

Today we started the routine, but on a light load.  We had our typical morning wake-up, chores, and breakfast then settled in to do math.  We finished the morning stuff at 11am, so now they are having some free time with music and drawing until lunch.  Typically, my routine has us finished with math and the rest of our seatwork by 10am so that they have a snack and break until we pick up our unit at 10:30 but I'm ok with this change of pace since it is just the first day.  We'll get into the groove as the kids remember our routine and things become more natural to us.  Until then, well this first week I'm only doing math and our tall tales unit that I thought would be a fun start to the year.

Jordan started 1st grade off with working on telling time to the half hour.

Kimmy started 2nd grade by reviewing in her Math-U-See Alpha book, I'm buying her Beta to do next month after she finishes the review.

Preston even got in on the action.  He got his first Ticonderoga pencils and got to draw with one during math (don't be fooled, that pencil is now chewed along the wood and it is also missing an eraser *sigh* toddlers are so fun)

Missa, as my 5th grader, is pretty independent so I can just make a few copies for her and turn her loose for the most part.  She lets me know when I need to come give her a little review talk on the concept, today we worked on multiplying multiple digit numbers time a single digit number with Math-U-See Gamma.

Lydia is also really good at independence as a 4th grader.  She is working at memorizing her multiplication facts, and working slowly through Math-U-See Gamma.

Overall, it has been a good day so far but it is only noon.  We'll have to wait and see what this afternoon brings, especially as right now there is a huge meltdown from Jordan because she didn't put away her markers and Preston decided to get into them.  She's going to learn quickly about keeping her supplies up when she's not using them.

I have a feeling this is going to be a great school year once we get back into the swing of things. I have a very full courseload for the kids so it is imperative that we get into routine as fast as possible.