First Day of School 2012!

This is how the boys started their first day of school this year!  They were waiting on breakast and decided to cuddle up on the couch together. 

We had a special treat for breakfast this morning - cinnamon rolls! (On a school day????)

After breakfast, I read our Bible story for today on creation, and then the boys cleaned up and did their chores.  Finally, we settled in for our first stretch of work.  We practiced Isaac's poem from Primary Language Lessons and then I read to them from My America and My World.  Isaac worked on his morning folder (maps, math review, and analogies) while I taught Ethan his math lesson.  While Ethan was working in his math workbook, I went over Isaac's spelling lesson and started him on his assignment. Even though Ethan is working from a first grade math book, he had no trouble with the lesson.  After spelling, Isaac did a handwriting assignment while Ethan and I curled up on the couch for his reading lesson.  This part of the day went much faster than I anticipated, and we actually finished about 15 minutes early.  This just meant that the boys got more playtime because recess was next!

Before I let the boys run off and play, I had to take the traditional first day of school photos!

The boys had about 45 minutes of outside play time, and I joined them for a little catch after I got dinner going in the crock-pot.  By that time, they were ready to come in and cool off, so we cleaned up, got a drink, and got back to work.

This next part of our day actually took longer than I expected, so I had to do some rearranging.  Isaac did great with his math and Ethan flew through his handwriting and got to play on Starfall.  I ran into the problem that Ethan being on the computer was distracting Isaac from doing his math problems, so I need to come up with a solution for what to have E do while Isaac is working on math.  After a little while, I sent him to his room to play with his blocks and things went better after that.  Here is Isaac working in his math workbook.  You can see E's reading words on the chalkboard in the background.

Next we did Isaac's picture lesson in Primary Language Lessons.  I had to work with him a little on answering the questions in complete sentences.  We also started Grammarland.  I expected to have time for Isaac to do his reading before lunch, but it was already lunch time at this point so we took about an hour break for lunch.

After lunch, Isaac re-read (because he also read it the day we brought it home from the library) the book The Treasure by Uri Shulevitz.  He gave it a thumbs-up, especially since the main character shares his name!  I had him create a picture essay to tell the story.  He did a great job, and was able to retell the story to my mom when she stopped by to see how the day went.

Our last official subject of the day was history.  We read the introduction to Story of the World 1: Ancient Times and I asked the boys comprehension questions.  They had a tough time at first answering the questions, but when it came time to give narrations they did pretty well for the first time.  Here is Isaac's narration, which he wrote himself, along with the pocket we made that contains examples of artifacts historians might find.

Ethan gave me his narration orally and I recorded it in his notebook for him.  As his handwriting improves, he will start to write his own narrations as well.

We finished our day by practicing instruments.  Isaac plays violin and Ethan is wanting to learn piano.  Isaac practices out of I Can Read Music , his Suzuki book, A Tune a Day, and music from Star Wars that his teacher gave him.  Ethan is using Pianimals to learn piano.

So at the end of the day, when everything was said and done, Isaac decided to spend his free time drawing the Solar System on the chalkboard and then, when the mail came, opening up the book I ordered for later in our history study - Ms. Frizzle's Adventures Ancient Egypt- and reading it.

And this is....THE BEGINNING!