First Day of School !

Eva's first day of Kindergarten!

This morning started out with lots of excitement for the first day of school. Everyone was up bright and early as usual. The lunches were packed, we were on to the finishing touches, of teeth, hair, and shoes, when Eva said, "Yuck mom- poo!" Sure enough my (2 weeks free of accidents) pottly trained 2 year old, had pooed on the floor. Thankfully it was on the lino. but still...she tried to clean it up her self with the hand towel from the washroom, and in that process got it all over her feet and hands.

After a stinky clean up where I had to hold back my gagging we were on the road to school. "Hey I thought you homeschooled?" - you may ask. Well we are actually enrolled in a Distributed Learning (DL) program. I don't feel comfortable naming it online, especially since my kids are no longer under sudo names, so if you want to know just leave me a comment.

Anyways, the program is AMAZING. The kids get to go to a public school once or twice a week if you choose to attend. There are tons of awesome field trips planned, there is a resource room filled with teaching aids, games, books etc. I feel like we are getting the best of both worlds. My children still have to listen to and be accountable to a teacher other than me, they get to hang with other homeschooled children, and yet I still get to be with them and teach them the majority of the time. Having them attend school gives us all the opportunity to enjoy a break from each other. I get a chance to get some errands done with only one child- (PURE BLISS), and I get some nice one on one time with Kezia.
So today after a few errands, I took my youngest out for lunch...

This is her new attempt at a smile. Funny thing.

Wicked Wednesday!

Just so you all don't get a delusional perspective on homeschooling from this blog, I thought I'd highlight a not so wonderful day. Today.
This post started out as a long drawn out post, but we all know how boring those are to read. So I'll just put it all in point form and you can fill in the blanks. Enjoy:

-6:30am toddler crawling into my bed.
-schoolwork in the morning was met with much resistance.
-decided to head out to tackle the errands.
-stop by church
-notice that 7 year old has no shoes on
-poor listening, and lot of running around happened at the church.
-carry kicking, screaming two year back to car.
-7 year old- just plain didn't listen or follow us to the car.
-7 year old stung by a bee twice on his shoulder. TEARS.
-drive back home
-get Afterbite, and SHOES!!!
-back in the car
-Library- screaming
-London Drugs
-Dollar Store: kids in the way, kid breaks something at check out, screaming (not me)
-eat lunch in the car
-2 year old has to pee
-find emergency pull up diaper.
-7 year old's tooth falls out, he put it in a cup of water
-grocery store: tears, screams, running, bad listening, kid breaking up all the squares in unopened chocolate bars at check out.
 -water from lunch on 2 year old.
-naked 2 year old
-Hello Neighbours!
-cup with water and tooth in dishwasher, bye bye tooth.

So after all that, I didn't have time to capture any wonderful pictures. But here's one- to remind me of the three blessings that I have been entrusted with on good days and bad ones.

Marvelous Monday !

Yesterday my heart just sang pretty much the whole day.
The night before I had left a little message on the white board for the kids, along with a "Shape of The Day". I left their Journals out on the table with pencils and erasers.
When I came down, it appeared as though the message had been read, but there was definitely no sign of journalism. We had breakfast together, tidied up breakfast, and then had a morning devotional time. We learned that the words we say to one and other can either make their water cups dirty or help to purify the water! We prayed, and talked about how we can use kind words with eachother today. Then we got straight to the journals!
On Sunday, we had participated in the Terry Fox Run and been to the Cannery so there was lots to write and draw about.

Writing is a sore spot for Theo. There has ALWAYS been a battle whenever I ask him to write anything! But not on Monday- he was eager and willing. I was so happy, I was nervous to say anything because I didn't want to jinx the moment. Eva happily drew her picture, but wanted me to scribe for her. She didn't have too much to say so that was easy enough. And then there was Kezia. She of course wants to do EVERYTHING that the big kids are doing so, she drew in her book too.

This was my happy moment. She drew her first Smartie person! During an art class in my B. Education we learned the developmental stages of drawing people and this is the first one folks- Smartie people, where the arms and legs both stem out of the head! I LOVE IT!!! I almost forgot, another Happy Happy Moment- my Eva read her first sentence, with ease! Heart swells up with joy, as both me and her brother are there with her to celebrate!

There was snack and lunch in the mix and then some math and spelling- all of which were met with joy (not always the case). There were puppy plays, colouring princesses and Lego of course. The day was topped off with an impromptu gathering at the park with other homeschooling families. The sun was shining, the kids were playing, the mom's were chatting and all was right in our worlds. A Marvelous Monday indeed!

Let's Start at the very beginning, a very good place to start!

Kezia proudly displaying her Aa card and teeth!

This morning "Jack" went to work to set up his classroom. He had been there all last week too, so we have all adjusted to life as it usually is. Today, being Labour Day, I was actually thinking of taking it easy with the kids. Last week, had been gradually trying to reintroduce them to paper and pencils in anticipation of school starting up again. Anyways, I thought we'd start the day off with some exercise; a little walk along the Dyke. Theo was not yet dressed (surprise, surprise) and the girls were both ready to go, so I gave them a little worksheet to do at the table, while we waited for Theo to get ready. The worksheet was very basic, a picture of Adam and Eva, and then a few letter Aa's to trace, a bible verse and a sentence to trace. I only printed two because I didn't think Theo would be interested. Well I was wrong. As soon as he saw the girls doing it, he wanted to do it too! (This may work very well to my advantage this year!) So I told Theo I'd print one out for him and he could do it after he was dressed. Well he was dressed before I had even printed the sheet out! So much for the walk! Like a mother never wakes a sleeping baby...a mother never interrupts kids who are inadvertently learning! Since they were all working so well together on their colouring and printing, I decided to do the dishes that had been sitting there since Friday (shame I know- but both "Jack" and I have cuts on our hands!) While doing the dishes, I came up with the idea, to just go with the flow and see how far we can take this letter A. thing! I suggested casually, that they all go and see how many things they can find that start with the letter A. Boy was a that a hit! They tore upstairs, and were eagerly showing each other things, and talking about letter A things. The following is what they came up with...

Eva wearing her apron.

Eva displaying the apple that she then proceeded to eat. I love edible learning!

They came up with the word airplane, but couldn't find one, so we decided to make some out of Lego!

Theo the smarty pants with his Abacus!

All of this of course is a bit below Theo's challenge level, so I decided to make him put the cards in alphabetical order. He did so with ease.

We took the pictures because, I thought that we could use these pictures to create our own, Alphabet book.  And don't worry, I won't bore you with new letters each week. After this, I asked Theo to write as many words as he could that started with the letter A. I was quite surprised at some like "artichoke" who knew he knew that artichokes existed? Not me! Anyways, he was VERY into thinking of words, and exclaimed how inspiring it was to think of A words. He dude whatever turns your crank!  = )
It was a lovely, peaceful, spontaneous morning of working together as team, learning together, playing together and enjoying each others company. I hope that today is a picture of what is to come in this, our first official full year of homeschooling!