School Days, School Days

Our first week is almost done! Here's a recap of his first two "first days" which were a big hit- his first day at our classical school co-op, and then his first day at home. I love that this boy just oozes excitement over life so it was no surprise he was up at 6am the last few days because he was so excited about school. Part of that is that it's one-on-one quality attention, which he THRIVES on, and the other part is that it's simply "something new" (although wouldn't it be great if he loved school that much?! haha! I'll just have to remind him when he doesn't how much he looked forward to it)!

Here are some snapshots from our "firsts."

Mekonen Jack

1st Day of Kindergarten

September 9, 2014

Weren't we just here? 

(Did I not say he always oozes excitement? Oh I LOVE him).

We are in love with the philosophy of classical education and have begun that for our kids. Mekonen's going to a one day a week classical school co-op. He LOOOOOOOOVED it. And bonus, two of his best buddies Jacob and Josiah are at his table. He especially loved recess and lunch. What boy doesn't?!?! He came home happy and exhausted, chatted the majority of the way home, then konked out cold in the backseat.

(A post on "What is Classical Education Anyway? coming soon!!)

1st day at home the next day. 

Here's our morning meeting board. This is where we do all the miscellaneous educational things like learn how to read a calendar, learn about weather, telling time, place value, our address, and do things like our monthly poetry reading, monthly artist study, etc. I'm such a teacher nerd and just love all this "teachery-stuff." 

 Most curriculums have a paper edition of this kind of stuff if you are homeschooling, but I didn't want more worksheets and he gets a kick out of doing it on a huge board. I made it portable so I can put it away when school is done so it's not just sitting in our living room. 

 Little Sis just had to join in. Which is fun because I'm getting in some preschool stuff too and she just thinks she's so cool. 

 We got a new to us table that seats ten people from some good friends and I just love it. We find ourselves spending a lot of time in our open dining room/kitchen. It's the brightest portion of our house and the morning sun coming in is just amazing, even if you can't see it here. The kids usually pull their toys from their room into this area to play. It's the perfect spot for now to do school (until we get a great big schoolroom, right Daddy? haha).

 He is quite excited about the fact that at the end of kindergarten he will be able to identify on a map all fifty states and their capitals. So far he has nailed down the first five. 

 Signs of a great morning. 

Daddy wants to be involved with the kids school too, which Mekonen LOVES. He saves the back side of his math paper to do with Daddy in the evening. Daddy is also memorizing our classical grammar work each week alongside Meko. 

We've had a great first week. My heart is full, so content with where we are in life right now. I'm sure there will be hard days, and days so stressful and difficult that I want to send them to school and quit this homeschooling shin-dig. But this week wasn't one of them, and for that, I'm thankful.

(Although, both our kids were running around this evening making all these weird noises and "play fighting" motions. We said we might need to take back our previous post on homeschoolers being weird because their parents are weird. Maybe we will need to write a new post on how we couldn't handle their weirdness and had to send them to school). 

If you're interested, "Why We Are Homeschooling" is also up on the blog.