2008-2009 School Year - Day 1

What a title that is!!! LOL
Today was a good day. I made a lot of changes to this year's schedule. I wasn't sure if I would like it, or if the day would "flow" like it always did but it seemed to work out really well.

For the past......6 (has it been that long???) years, school mornings have contained english, foreign language, reading, math and drill work. Science, history, geography and literature have happened in the afternoon. I am sure that you can guess what happened to science, history, geography and literature as soon as something more delightful came along. Yeah. So I feel that we are behind in those subjects and feel that God wanted me to work our schedule to ensure that these subjects were covered with regularity.

Today, our subjects occured in the following order:
Bible
Read Aloud (literature)
History
Geography
Science

Then we moved into english grammar, spelling, handwriting, typing (new this year) and math. This took us right up to lunch time. I allowed the boys to take a break, run around some and do their chores while I prepared lunch. I will need to plan out lunches better though......we can't live on hamburger helper (can we???). After lunch, the boys did their reading and book baskets (see My Father's World for information on book baskets). They finished up around 2 p.m. but I was done at 11 a.m. and able to get some of my chores done. What a relief! I had visions of school lasting all day long! I think it helped that I set time limits for each subject and told the boys that they only had to work (diligently) for that period of time on that subject and then could put it away. What a relief to them.....they knew that the lesson wouldn't drag on forever and ever without end. Math was the longest time limit of 20 minutes. Most subjects were slotted for 15 minutes. Charlotte Mason advocates short lessons and I agree!

I will have to work on ways to entertain Mr. Bear during school time. He spent most of the morning trying to eat dog food, hitting his brother with a walking stick and wailing in disbelief that he would be contained by the playpen (baby jail) for any period of time. I was very thankful when he went down for his morning nap at 10 a.m. What a blessing that routine is! Any suggestions on what to do with a 9 month old would be greatly appreciated.

All in all our first day of school was a success. I enjoyed the day and even caught myself laughing with my silly boys. I thank God for the opportunity that He has given us to be together!