Tuesday, September 1, 2009

First day of school at home

Monday was our first day of school at home! The day went better than I expected, but before I give you all the details...

make sure you enter my contest to win a free 2010 everydayMOM planner! (Whew! Had to get that out of my system... You only have until Friday to enter the drawing!)

We started our school day around 8:30 and we were done by about 2:30. I'm curious to find out how many hours other people spend on home school.



We covered everything I had planned, and it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to switch from Andrew's third grade teaching time to Matthew's first grade teaching time.

Alayna came along for the ride, jumping in for any read-alouds, phonics, handwriting and some math activities.


Both boys loved having their planners with all of their assignments listed for them so they could see what they had left to complete. I was feeling kind of zapped by 2 p.m. when we finished everything, but Andrew put the day into perspective for me.

He rode his bike around the block a few times and then asked, "Mom, if I was at regular school would I be home by now?"

I told him he would still have about another 30 minutes of school and then a 25-minute drive home.

"And after that I would have to do homework," he said. "I love home school."

I had to focus on that for a minute myself. We often were working on homework until bedtime, so really I'm only spending a few extra hours a day doing home school. That was a nice feeling at the end of the day.


Andrew's favorite part of the day was reading Story of the World. He is getting started on the Middle Ages, and loved the story of Beowolf.


Matthew loved learning about Astronomy during our science time.



I brought out a lot of Discovery Toys to use during our math and phonics time. Alayna enjoyed making patterns and "fences" for the Busy Bugs.

Andrew made me feel great when the day was over:

"You're a good teacher, Mom," he said. "You did a great job!"

Today is going even better because we are doing several of our subjects outside on this beautiful day!

If you are a home school mom, I would love to hear any tips or suggestions! I hope the rest of you are getting off to a great start at "real" school!



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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats on your first Home School day! Glad to hear it was a success (especially in your kids' eyes!!)
Laurel
ps I'd like to enter your draw again!!

Lara said...

Glad to hear you're off to such a good start. Good perspective that it's really only a few hours extra a day. And it sounds like your organizational skills are making a difference for you and your kids. You go, everdayMoM! Rock the world of homeschooling!

Corrie said...

I'm so glad your first day went well! This is our second year of homeschooling (and we started this year with a 4 month old!) We are really enjoying this homeschooling journey too. Your day sounds similar to ours, we are usually done around that time too (if everyone stays on track that is!)My kids love to point out when they are done before public school. We also use Story of the World and love it. The kids beg to do it, even when I haven't scheduled it in! I like the days that go as smoothly as I have planned, these kinds of days help me through the not-so-smooth days!

Sarah said...

Great job, Emily! I upped our minutes...#1 is now 210; #2 is now 180; and #3 is now 90. It's working well, and when they work on their own, we can overlap. Sometimes we're done by 12:30! And, big bonus of NO HOMEWORK!

Jenny-Jenny said...

Way to go. Sounds like a really great day. I don't think there is a better compliment in the world than one that comes from your own children. Congratulations on that and on the good day of school.

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