First Day of School

Today didn't go entirely as planned, but that's usually the way of life with kids.

Our school day started last night when Finn wouldn't settle and go to sleep. He came downstairs with me and went right to his work box and grabbed a package of flash cards. I hadn't realized that he was so excited to start school. I sat down with him and we worked together on finding what was the same and what was different about each flash card. He also played a game where he rolled a die and then put the corresponding number of circles in the correct spot.

Maeve woke up bright and early as usual and got started right away. She didn't want to read her short vowel "a" book, but we read four books about alligators, she started her alligator lap book, we read a lot about the top 10 biggest dinosaurs, discussed why we can't have seals as pets, she did a short vowel "a" worksheet, she drew, colored and cut out several apples and went crazy drawing flowers. Maeve was very proud of herself when she wrote a lowercase "a".

Finn colored a blue apple (that was HUGE for him and a lot of hard work) and did a cute finger play about a worm eating an apple. He put apples in order from smallest to biggest and we read his new favorite book, Alligator Boy. Finn and I read The Bad Bag from the Progressive Phonics series and he was able to read some of the words on his own. Maeve looked over his shoulder the entire time and helped him sound out some of the words. We also played hot potato with an apple, but when Finn was stuck with the apple twice in a row, he was done playing.

Oren was Oren. He attempted to grab everything off of the tables and got in Finn's way as much as possible. He worked very hard putting clothes pins into any available hole and was excited when I brought in a table just for him. I also made him a marker jar like the ones Maeve and Finn have and Oren had fun taking the markers out, eating them and then putting them back into the container.

One thing I think I will do differently is to have an overall theme for the week, but then focus our work on certain subjects everyday. For instance, Monday might be focused on science, Tuesday is reading and writing, Wednesday is math, etc. I think that will allow us to do a lot more fun, hands-on stuff.