1st day of school

Hannah's first day of Pre-K

Nehemiah's first day of Kindergarten

Joseph's first day of 2nd grade

(Um.... the icing grass... I was playing with a new icing tip and trying to use up all of the icing at the same time.  Ignore that blob that is the side of the cake) :)

Well, school is back in session at our house.  Some of the kids couldn't be happier, and some couldn't be more upset.  (I'm sure you can figure out which child is not happy about school)
This year I am trying a new approach and I am using the workbox system.  I don't have all of the kinks ironed out yet but I think this is going to be great for us.  I started the school day off by letting the kids know that I am not good at following a schedule.  (Thats a good start to school, right?)  I can create an amazing plan on excel... but when it comes to following that schedule, yuck.  Thankfully (I think) a few of my kids are lovers of the schedule.   They joyfully remind me "next we get dressed Mommy!" "Oooh! Now we can work on box #1 Mommy!"  So I think they are going to keep us on track.  The goal is to be finished with school by lunch.  With 4 days of school under our belt we have accomplied that twice.  With a little one in the house you NEVER know how your day is going to play out.  Thats ok.  I'm flexable. :)

So day 1... Joseph picked up where he left off in math.  He is half way through his 2nd grade (Saxon) math book (his favorite subject).  We are using Bob Jones English this year.  It's my first time using Bob Jones and so far I like what I see.  Joseph groans when we get English out but quickly turns to smiles because the work is actually fun. 

We have science and some geography to add to his workload but haven't begun those subjects yet.  Slow and steady wins the race. ;)

These two are basically following the same daily schedule.  Day 1 we began by talking about patterns.  They each (proudly) made an ice cream cone pattern.  I learned some fun things about these two.

Nehemiah is a "matter of fact" kind of kid.  You tell him to "color this paper" and he whips out his crayons and marks that paper all up faster than you can say "crayola".  Hannah on the other hand is more of a thorough student.  She will spend half the morning coloring one paper, making sure that she stays in the lines and uses pretty colors.  For example: Day 2 of school Nehemiah and Hannah each had a picture of a bear holding a bag to color.  There was a short sentence on the paper stating what the bear had in the bag.  The kids were to finish the sentence.  Hannah said "bear" and then drew and colored a picture of a bear in the bag.  Nehemiah said "jump rope" and drew a line.  He then hopped down from the table and asked "can I watch a movie now?"

This is going to be an interesting year.  :)

This little one keeps the school day interesting too.  Wow is about all I have to say about that.