Guiding and Guarding Their Hearts: Week One: A Week of Firsts

Our first week of homeschooling has really flown by! It has definitely been a week of "firsts" in many ways. As much as I have prepared for this important ordeal, this week has not been perfect in any way, shape or form. You know what is said about the "best laid plans" right? But, we will learn and adjust as we go along. I remember having to do something very similar when teaching chemistry. I would plan and plan for my first lesson, teach it first period and inevitably have certain things go "awry." I quickly became very proficient at tweaking a few things between first and second period so that the lesson would go more smoothly. That is what I keep telling myself about this homeschooling "business." There will be many plans, many bumps, but we will get them smoothed out. Now for some of our "firsts!"

Our first classroom

This is our very first classroom. :) I like the way it turned out. I got a lot of these ideas from one of my favorite homeschooling blogs, Confessions of a Homeschooler. You can find most of these wall charts here. We start every day off with a prayer, pledge of allegiance and then "calendar time" where we talk about the date, weather, seasons and sing our days of the week song from the Confessions website. We then do all the work in our workboxes. I decided to follow Sue Patrick's workbox system. You can find out all the information about this system here. Although I have not read her book or anything, I am following the basic plan for now which is to start at box #1, complete the activity, then move on to the next until all ten boxes are done. I love this idea for many reasons. It keeps me organized (which is very important to me), most all of the supplies are in one box (so I don't go roaming around the house looking for things), and my girls can eventually grown into independent learners with some help from mom. Oh, and I have plans for that glaringly blank wall above the piano. It will soon become our books of the Bible wall. I will post pictures when I am done.

Our first day

I tried to make our first day a fun and memorable one. The truth is I have been a little under the weather this week and did not feel so great that day. Remember what I said about the "best laid plans?" I rolled myself out of bed early and cooked a yummy breakfast that consisted of bacon, eggs, and masterfully made ABC pancakes. Not really....this is how they ended up looking.

I was frustrated and the hubby laughed hysterically for about five minutes straight. But they tasted great and as you can see my school girl was extremely happy. That is all that matters right? By the way, my batter lasted all the way to the letter "H" but I will not torture your eyes with the rest. ;) After our breakfast, we got dressed and started our school day. Since it was the first day though, we did a few extra fun things. We opened her princess pencil box to find a few special surprises which included princess pencils, her first pair of hot pink scissors and a sucker. Then we had a "first day of school" interview using this cute form that my very good friend shared with me. Here is how Anna's turned out:

Here is a picture of our school girl on her first day of preschool. Doesn't she just look ready to learn? Little sis had to peep in on this picture too...lol!

Our first week

Here are pictures of some of the fun learning activities we did this week:

Ice cream upper case / lower case match-up

Upper case / lower case letter match up using clothes pins

Tracing letters

Writing letters with paint bags (little sis has to get in on this one)

Painting with magnetic marbles

She said this one looked like fire.

Our first ballet class

This is not 100% true. She actually did a ballet camp this past summer but this is the first time she has actually joined a year-long ballet class. Ballet day is our favorite day of the week. My reasons may be a little different than hers though. This is a day were she gets to dress up and dance around with her friends. For me, this is a day that I get to spend with just my little ballerina doing nothing but "girl" stuff. On this first day of ballet, we spent time with her best little ballet friend and her mother (who is also one of my very best friends), went to ballet class, hit the local Starbucks for a snack and then did some grocery shopping. Here are some pictures from our first day of ballet class.

Her bbf (best ballet friend)!

Twirling :)

Hanging out at Starbuck's with my ballerina :)

Our first school party!

This week we reviewed the letters of the alphabet. We are following a K-4 curriculum that I purchased from the Confessions of a Homeschooler website. If you are interested, you can find it here. At the end of week one, it suggests to have an alphabet party. So we did! We watched Leap Frog letter Factory, ate alphabet soup and played an alphabet game while we ate. Here are some pictures from our alphabet party. :)