First day back, homeschool 2010

Not-back-to-school 2010 was a success :)

I entered into the new home-school year with some trepidation, I did not get all the organizing done as I had wished to. But, it worked out, the little I did do was enough and we had a really great 1st day.

I did get my homeschool bookcase cleaned and organized. This is where I keep our Sonlight books and also where I keep big magazine type boxes to hold books/notebooks for each child- this is the spot to find books we use on a daily basis. I also bought new 3-ring binders for each student and filled them with a week's worth of work.

I set up my chalk-board wall of power with a list of the short day I had planned, and then I added a drawing of a big hand, with each finger labeled with a task from The Daily 5, which I will be implementing into our day this year. I heart this concept and I heart this book!

We started 1st with a Bible/Character story for the 3 littles from School Days with the Millers.
I still haven't figured out curriculum for Bible..so for now, I will be doing character lessons.

After Bible time, I have scheduled our Daily 5 time-block. Today, I explained to the kids what the Daily 5 is, what it will look like- and then we only tackled 2 of the 5. First, we worked on "write" by having creative journal time. The kids wrote about what they did during the Summer. Next, we did "read out loud to someone" - that someone was me.

I used this time to introduce them to this
Fiction Reading Comprehension program-cards in a box by Teacher Created Resources. I explained how to use them and then worked through one card with each child- doing the comprehension questions on the back together. I love this program, it's going to be great for the kids to use independently during "read to self time".

We then all worked on Math. We are using Math-U-See. After that came handwriting. I had the 3 kids sometimes working on a different subject while I had a reading session with one.

Meg and Josie were working totally independently, but sitting at the table with us. Today, they tackled Math, History and Literature, Grammar and Writing.

After cursive handwriting, we moved onto the all important snack time and play break. Once break was over (about 15 minutes- during which I corrected Math) I had the 3 kids each work in their Explode the Code (phonics) workbooks. Then, we were done!

A bit of a short day, but I wanted to ease into things. I felt really successful in starting the day early- I was aiming for an 8:30 start time, actually starting at 8:45. This was much, much better than the 9-ish or later time (usually later) we were managing at the end of our last school year. Sky helped me get up and out to exercise early this morning. By the start of homeschool, I had walked/exercised, showered & dressed and had breakfast. For the Bridget Jones Homeschool mom- this was a huge feat. It felt really, really good to be ready to take on the day.