Kicking Off Another School Year

My alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. and I heard my coffee pot starting up. I love coffee pots with delay brew cycles. I spent some time with the Lord and even listened to the hymn "I Need Thee Every Hour" on grooveshark.com. My little girl was so excited, she peeked her head out the door and asked, "Mommy, are you done with your Bible study, because I really want to come out of my room now." That made me smile and how could I say "no" even though the children are suppose to stay in their rooms until 7:30 a.m.  The girls helped me make the donuts. We just used canned biscuit dough and fried them in our deep fryer. I have never made these before and they will probably only be a once-a-year treat and they were exactly that - a treat! Some got covered in a basic powder sugar glaze and the others I shook around in a paper lunch sack with a cinnamon and sugar mixture. 

We cleared away the breakfast dishes and the children got to open their back to school goody bags. They really didn't need many new supplies, but they were excited to get some new pens, pencils, and markers, and some candy and gum.

Then as a family, we wrote down things we're thankful for. We set the timer for 2 minutes and tried to list as many things as we could. I got the super cute printable from Finding Joy.  We talked about how it's easier "to do all things for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31) when we are joyful, praying, and giving thanks (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

 Next, I told the children they could get dressed in any way the wanted and then we took pictures. Doesn't everybody take pictures the first day of school?

 Once we were done with pictures, we were suppose to head to the track to do a physical fitness assessment, but it was raining so we are hopefully going to get that done tomorrow. So, we just hit our book work. I explained to the children how their one-on-one lesson time with me would work and I've tweaked our chore chart a bit as well. For their independent work today, the children wrote to me in their journals, read their silent reading books, and did chores.

During their one-on-one time with me, we did a math lesson.

After this, it was time for lunch (sorry not pictures of lunch). Ha!  After lunch my kitchen helper this week (L) and I cleaned everything up and then we started on our geography studies. We are studying about the gold rush and learning how many from the east coast traveled by boat along the coast of South America, around Cape Horn, and up the Pacific Ocean to get to California. So today, the children worked very hard on a physical map of South America. They labeled oceans, lakes, mountains, cities, and rivers.

Our day wrapped up around 2 o'clock and once school is done, I take off my teacher's hat and put on my workout shoes. It's been a full day and I still have to cook supper! Oh well, this is the life of a home educating mom and I am thankful and can't imagine doing anything else at this season of my life. Day 1/180 is done. I'm not going to lie and say everything went perfectly, but we are getting used to new routines and trying hard to "be joyful always, pray continually, and give thanks" (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).