First Day of School 2013-2014

 

I had originally planned to start school today.  Then I wasn't ready.  All my Evernote plans and menu plans and shopping lists weren't finished.  So I decided to wait until August 12, after my grandparents' visit.  Then Digby's behavior started getting unbearable.  Just normal 4 year old boy stuff, but it was really wearing down my patience, my resolve, and all of my energy.  So I decided to go back to my original plan of starting school today.  He does much better with structured routine and staying close to my side.  The only incident we had today was him painting my bathroom counters with nail polish when he went up to use the potty.  And then I remembered that I'd instituted a rule of using the downstairs potty.  NO MATTER WHAT!  Luckily, nail polish can be removed with nail polish remover.

Last night DH and I stayed up wicked late trying to get everything clean and organized and ready for today.  Living room cleaned and vacuumed.  Table cleared and wiped (a big deal for me).  Ginormous amounts of dishes washed by DH.  Then I crockpotted chicken for the week, steel cut oats for breakfast, got a loaf of bread in the bread machine and made some muffins for our snack.  I got about 5 hours of sleep.  Pigby's dance lessons were switched to today because of a big performance tomorrow.  So that meant I had to drive DH to work and all the fun that comes with it.




We got home and they refused to eat their breakfast.  While I let them sit their with their grumpy attitudes, I went up and wrapped their back to school presents.  Then we did the pictures outside, walk around the block, and came back to open their presents.  Pigby got a Curious George book (thank you Kohl's Cares!), Digby got I am an Artist for BFIAR (our library doesn't have it and the Amazon price wasn't unreasonable).  Chuck got The Big Green Pocketbook (same reason as Digby's).

Then I tried eating the crockpot oats.  Blech!  I used dehydrated bananas from food storage.  I don't recommend them in this type of dish.  I felt bad about being grumpy with the kids not eating it, so I let them have some muffins for breakfast instead.





Then we did Circle Time: Songs, Scripture Reading and Illustration (Digby started crying because he didn't have his own notebook for illustrations), and Memory Work.  Then while Pigby watched some Mark Kistler videos on the laptop, I did preschool with the little two.  This week we are rowing "I am an Artist."  We read the book, then they painted some clouds on construction paper using a cotton ball and white paint.

 







Then we worked on math.  Pigby watched the video as review and did some online drill.  Apparently, the kids got into the Desk Apprentice while we were on break and the three sheets he had left to do in lesson ten are mission.  So I made up some of my own drills for him to do.  He did fine.  While he was working on math, the younger two played with the math blocks.  We are missing TONS of the number ten blocks again and someone is in trouble for it.

Then Pigby did his copywork while the little two used my tablet and phone for their "handwriting practice".  There's an app called "Write A, B, C" that has kids start at the correct spot of the letter and go through each stroke.  If they start at the incorrect place or go the wrong way or don't stay on the line, they have to start over.  I like it better than the other handwriting app we have because it teaches them the correct order.  They also played with the Starfall app too.  Pigby does his copywork from pages I made using the StartWrite software.  Apparently I forgot to get this in order, I had to go hunt the notebook down.

Then they went to watch a movie because I was about to pass out.  I set my alarm and took a nap.  I overslept because I didn't hear the alarm!  We made a mad dash to quickly eat and run out the door for dance lessons.  When we got home from dance, they wanted to eat more, then I made them take a 30 minute quiet time on their beds.  Chuck ended up falling asleep.  We had to go pick DH up from work, so I carried her down and put her in her seat and she only woke when I set her in the seat, then she immediately fell back asleep.  Digby also fell asleep on the way there.

That about sums up our first day of school for the 2013-2014 school year.