Second First Day of Kindergarten (Chee-yeck)

Last year was our first practice year. I called it Kindergarten since Pigby was reading at a kindergarten level. At least I think it was a kindergarten level; he could read the CVC and CVCC and CVCV words easy peasy. Here he is one year ago.



First practice year was kind of hit or miss. I was pregnant and so stinkin' tired. DH got a job and was working 50 hours a week and I was so stinkin' tired. Digby was a little maniac and was always getting himself in a position of potential injury. I was honestly worried we'd be visiting the ER every day. I was ginormous and had a back injury that made it hard to walk more than 25 feet. And then I had the baby and had to deal with all the postpartum stuff that follows a baby. By the end of the year, we'd gotten some reading lessons done, half of the math lessons finished and one Handwriting Without Tears book completed. Considering how lazy I normally am, I will call it a success.

This year is the real deal though. No messing around. It's the last "practice" year that I get, because next year I will have to report him to the school district. It was the first day of public school, so I'm calling it the first day of our new school year. We went on our annual walk around the block.
Since DH is at work this year, Digby and Chuck had to come along. There's Digby, refusing to hug Pigby and spoiling my plans for a sweet picture. I was holding Chuck in my homemade Moby Wrap.



It was one of the worst days possible to start school. Both Digby and Chuck woke up twice screaming their heads off. And then I had a horrible nightmare. One that was so scary, I woke up feeling like I had a 50 pound weight on my chest. I used to think dreams where people were trying to kill me were the worst ever. They're not. *sigh* And after that, I was so afraid to go back to sleep I was checking Facebook and WTM boards on my phone. So needless to say, I was super tired when I woke up this morning.

This morning, Pigby did his chores, we went on a walk, the boys played with baby girl, and I washed dishes and made lunch. We tried doing Gospel Study while Digby was awake, but it was too difficult. He kept wanting to steal the dry erase marker and write on the white board and screaming when I wouldn't let him. I'm sure the Spirit isn't driven away by a screaming two year old. A screaming 30 year old, maybe. But he's just so cute, even when screaming, I'm sure the Spirit can forgive him ;-)

As soon as he went down for his nap, Pigby and I got to work. I wrote: grammar, spelling, math, reading, handwriting on the white board with little boxes next to each. I told Pigby he could pick which one we did first. He picked grammar. So we did the lesson #1 in First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind. Pretty much all it is is saying, "A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea," over and over again.

Then he picked math. So we watched the DVD again and got our math blocks out and he did a worksheet. Then he picked spelling. I'm not all that happy with our choice of curriculum, but it's working well enough for him, so we'll finish out the year. Next year I'll get All About Spelling. I'm so uptight and everything has to be logical, I think I just need the curriculum that follows an orderly pattern. But all the real experts on the WTM boards told me to at least give it a try, so that's what we're doing. If I can brag for just a minute, I will say that Pigby got all seven of the words on the regular list right (man, at, can, ran, dad, cat, an) and only missed one of the challenge words (thank, add, ask). He originally spelled "thank" like "tanck". I think it's amazing he did that well when he's never done any kind of spelling before.

Then I suggested reading lessons to give his hand a break. He did that quickly, then we did one page of HWT. We were on capital Es today. Again, he did that very quickly and very well. I'm so proud of my sweet boy.

As soon as we finished, I put a movie in for him and took a 30 minute nap on the couch until Chuck woke up. Now DH is on his way home, then Pigby and I will be headed to the movie theater to celebrate the first day of school.