Anyone else start their first day of school today? Or even if you are continuing...

[Plucky]

How did it go?

 

Excellent day here so far. Kids are zipping through their work with ease. That will all change when they have homework from their outside classes to do next week and when the material we have at home gets harder. Still it cheers me up having a good first day since I really, really did not want to start. :D

[Jean in Newcastle]

(Slightly modified report from my other thread where I was freaking out last night.)

 

We started school today. Both kids were very excited about starting. We have always had a chore time right before school but today the chore time went esp. well. Of course, I realize that it usually does at first before it becomes boring and like work and no one wants to do it.

 

Ds and I had a one hour Latin tutorial which went amazingly well. There were no tears of frustration or cussing, which is huge improvement on last year. Ds is now finishing up his one hour of independent morning work.

 

Dd and I had a one hour varied Language arts time that also went well, though she balked at some of it. I kept the areas that were hard for her short so that she was able to be stretched a bit without snapping. I'm figuring out what I'm doing on this as we go because I've never done the CM approach at this age level but I think this will work for us. She also had a one hour independent working time that went well.

 

We are on our 30 min. of recess before lunch and afternoon school.

[Plucky]

(Slightly modified report from my other thread where I was freaking out last night.)

 

We started school today. Both kids were very excited about starting. We have always had a chore time right before school but today the chore time went esp. well. Of course, I realize that it usually does at first before it becomes boring and like work and no one wants to do it.

 

Ds and I had a one hour Latin tutorial which went amazingly well. There were no tears of frustration or cussing, which is huge improvement on last year. Ds is now finishing up his one hour of independent morning work.

 

Dd and I had a one hour varied Language arts time that also went well, though she balked at some of it. I kept the areas that were hard for her short so that she was able to be stretched a bit without snapping. I'm figuring out what I'm doing on this as we go because I've never done the CM approach at this age level but I think this will work for us. She also had a one hour independent working time that went well.

 

We are on our 30 min. of recess before lunch and afternoon school.

 

That is great! I think we kind of do a combined CM/eclectic approach. Inserting kids into the plan is always the hard part. I'm so glad you had a good day.

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

We're back (week 5 of school) after no school last week because of sickness. We're only 85% better, but Builder Boy was eager to start earlier than usual. Until I asked him to say an AWANAs verse (which he's known for a year) instead of reading it. :banghead: Just one of those things where you have to say,"well, that's not going to be finished today" and move on. The rest of the morning went well and we will have math and history after lunch.

[coffeegal]

How did it go?

 

Sigh.... let's just say the highlight of the day was the coffee maker breaking. :glare:

[Plucky]

We're back (week 5 of school) after no school last week because of sickness. We're only 85% better, but Builder Boy was eager to start earlier than usual. Until I asked him to say an AWANAs verse (which he's known for a year) instead of reading it. :banghead: Just one of those things where you have to say,"well, that's not going to be finished today" and move on. The rest of the morning went well and we will have math and history after lunch.

 

Exactly. He's doing great for a 5yob. Good job, mom.

[Plucky]

Sigh.... let's just say the highlight of the day was the coffee maker breaking. :glare:

 

Oh, no. You are coffeegal, too. How are you holding up? Go get a new and better coffee maker. :grouphug:

[Mommy22alyns]

Sigh.... let's just say the highlight of the day was the coffee maker breaking. :glare:

 

Oh, no! What an awful way to start the day!

 

We're starting week 5 and everything went well. I play-acted a plane ride for ECC and the girls adored it. I felt like a huge dork though.

 

Our very first day this year was pretty rough.

[Hoot]

DS is sick today so we're taking it easy. He did some school work this morning but nothing major. Now we're just hanging out watching movies. We've started with "Adventures of Tin Tin," which DS has dubbed as "one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen." I really can't say I disagree with him. :glare: Next up is "Alice in Wonderland" in preparation for the drama that he'll be acting in this year.

[NorthwestMom]

We started today and did not die. I do a slow buildup to full content, so they only did spelling and math today.

[Twilight Woods]

Our first day went great. We also had co op today so I did not think we would get everything done but we did.

 

Handwriting was the worst part of our day :)

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

Exactly. He's doing great for a 5yob. Good job, mom.

 

Thanks :001_smile:

 

We're starting week 5 and everything went well. I play-acted a plane ride for ECC and the girls adored it. I felt like a huge dork though.

 

:lol: The things we do for our children's educations.

[Plucky]

We started today and did not die. I do a slow buildup to full content, so they only did spelling and math today.

 

:lol::lol::lol:

[Plucky]

DS is sick today so we're taking it easy. He did some school work this morning but nothing major. Now we're just hanging out watching movies. We've started with "Adventures of Tin Tin," which DS has dubbed as "one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen." I really can't say I disagree with him. :glare: Next up is "Alice in Wonderland" in preparation for the drama that he'll be acting in this year.

 

Oooh, drama research. Love it. :D

[Plucky]

Our first day went great. We also had co op today so I did not think we would get everything done but we did.

 

Handwriting was the worst part of our day :)

 

Yes, handwriting can be a bear. Tell your kiddo that my 8th grader is having to do remedial handwriting since his has gotten so bad. It's easier to get it right the first time. :001_smile:

[Plucky]

Oh, no! What an awful way to start the day!

 

We're starting week 5 and everything went well. I play-acted a plane ride for ECC and the girls adored it. I felt like a huge dork though.

 

Our very first day this year was pretty rough.

 

Wait, I thought being a dork was just another part of being a mom. It's in the job description somewhere.

[craftyerin]

We're 3 weeks in, and added something new. We started our SM K today. They were total squirrels during the lesson, but rocked it on their own in the workbook, so I guess something stuck through the squirrellyness. Well, that and it wasn't a brand new concept, so that's nice. Ease them in. Gain some confidence. I was pleased!

 

Otherwise, normal keeping-on with FIAR, AAR pre-level and ETC. All's well in kindergarten. :D

[swellmomma]

It is our second week. Better than last week with the bigs, but further proof that ds14 is going to need to go back on adhd meds. Littles not so good, they are miserable today. dd5 has been having tantrums complete with kicking me, jumping up and down, laying on belly feet and legs going. Apparently she started this in Disney last week and got away with it all week having everyone run to soothe her. Here she has spent a lot of time on time out and a warning that if she has another tantrum today she is getting a spanking and sent to bed. period. ds9 opened his bank account today so as far as he is concerned that was math class. Sorry buddy nope.

 

They are taking a short break and then we are jumping into some geography and science.

[Plucky]

We're 3 weeks in, and added something new. We started our SM K today. They were total squirrels during the lesson, but rocked it on their own in the workbook, so I guess something stuck through the squirrellyness. Well, that and it wasn't a brand new concept, so that's nice. Ease them in. Gain some confidence. I was pleased!

 

Otherwise, normal keeping-on with FIAR, AAR pre-level and ETC. All's well in kindergarten. :D

 

Nice! I loved kindergarten. They are so stinking cute at that age.

[Plucky]

It is our second week. Better than last week with the bigs, but further proof that ds14 is going to need to go back on adhd meds. Littles not so good, they are miserable today. dd5 has been having tantrums complete with kicking me, jumping up and down, laying on belly feet and legs going. Apparently she started this in Disney last week and got away with it all week having everyone run to soothe her. Here she has spent a lot of time on time out and a warning that if she has another tantrum today she is getting a spanking and sent to bed. period. ds9 opened his bank account today so as far as he is concerned that was math class. Sorry buddy nope.

 

They are taking a short break and then we are jumping into some geography and science.

 

I feel your pain. I have 2 on adhd meds. Had them off them for a few weeks for summer break. They need those things to function though. :glare:

 

Wait, banking doesn't count as math??? But, moooooooommmmmmm.... :lol:

[Jean in Newcastle]

Afternoon -

 

Dd10 -

 

Absolutely loved the CM Run-Your-Own-Sports Store curriculum that someone here recommended. I'm going to look them up in a bit and thank them specially. I saw her willingly do sums that she's just sat and cried over before.:001_smile:

 

Had a stinky attitude even going into our piano lesson. She wanted to learn piano in the first place. I can ignore all stinkiness for a 15 min. lesson. She actually did fine. If I can just persevere and let her see that it really isn't so bad, it will be fine. When she has a stinky attitude then she reverts to "I can't do it" status.

 

Is having a huge hissy fit because she can't find her ruler and other tools that she refuses to put away. I'm ignoring her. (Lalalala. . . I can't hear you!)

 

Ds15 -

 

Ok - I admit I yelled when he wasted almost a half hour of his hour of chemistry on stuff that was not even assigned. He got one thing done but I think he's going to be a very busy and unhappy young man over the weekend when he realizes that he's not going to meet the deadline of what is due by Friday. (We've switched to a syllabus with due dates for assignments for the first time this year.

 

He's doing fine in math. He has two other subjects to do after that.

[Luckymama]

Week 3 here, a pretty good day :)

 

We're trying something new this year, a list of all things I want her to get through for the week. She can choose when to do the various assignments though math and vocab need to be done daily. So today dd read all the history for the week and we discussed just why she can't stand Marx, she did a section and a half from AoPS algebra, vocab, answered some geography questions, read through the new Science Olympiad rules manual (heredity looks sooooooo cool), and then picked up a book from the geography pile I brought home. I'm prereading books both for this year and for a potential AP Human Geography class.

 

Three hours later she had to rush to get ready for ballet class! The book is called Hungry Planet:What the World Eats (here) 30 families around the world were photographed with a week's worth of food. Each section has additional photos of shopping and food prep, listings of the foods with prices, facts about the country related to the population and food accessibility and consumption, and an essay about the family. It is absolutely fascinating, deceptively simple due to the large photos yet very dense once you start comparing families and country information.

 

She's about 2/3 of the way through the book. We used the atlas to reference population densities, average yearly rainfall, latitude, landforms, and vegetation.

 

Love this :D

[swellmomma]

I feel your pain. I have 2 on adhd meds. Had them off them for a few weeks for summer break. They need those things to function though. :glare:

 

Wait, banking doesn't count as math??? But, moooooooommmmmmm.... :lol:

 

He has been off for 2.5 years but add to it the total loss of brain cells when he hit 14 and it is not a good mix. By the end of the year one of us will be well medicated lol

[swellmomma]

Afternoon -

 

Dd10 -

 

Absolutely loved the CM Run-Your-Own-Sports Store curriculum that someone here recommended. I'm going to look them up in a bit and thank them specially. I saw her willingly do sums that she's just sat and cried over before.:001_smile:

 

.

 

Do tell me more about this one

[Firestar Academy]

it was ok. they didn't get nearly as much done as they should have.

 

but to be honest, we got 4 foster pups yesterday and it was a lot of puppy clean-up and 4 hour feeding schedule and exhaustion!!!

 

robin in nj

[Julie Smith]

We go year round, so it wasn't a first day.

 

Oh man, I don't know what was up with my kids. I eventually cancelled school, they were crazy. They had a package of TP that was given to them. They ended up toilet papering the play structure in the back yard, running around like crazy, throwing TP rolls at the back of the garage. You would think they had eaten nothing but sugar for breakfast.

 

I had to cancel school since I knew it just wouldn't work.

 

The skating rink just opened up and they pulled the skate bag 0.5km to the rink and back and skating for an hour.

 

Eldest is still a bit bouncy so dh just took him out for a 3km run before bed.

 

I know tomorrow will be calmer, wee seem to get a hyper day once ever y two or three months that warrants canceling school.

 

My son is here and wants me to add...

 

;):confused::D:grouphug::grouphug:

 

Ps, they did both happily clean up all the TP when asked to.

 

ETA: My husband and Eldest got back. Turns out they just did 2.1KM Eldest didn't even break a sweat. In his words, "I just went Daddy speed". (which was a time of 14 minutes)

Edited September 11, 2012 by Julie Smith

[dbmamaz]

Day 1 after a 2-week break and a very light summer

 

Went surprisingly well! I was actually surprised! rather short day due to martial arts class and mom doc apt but . . .

 

we started on time

slight whining from 9 yo about history, as usual

teen read the first assignment of LLLOTR on his own, did his first section of LOF Beg Alg (which is review ,we finished up 2 years of upper level singapore), good attitude.

9 yo started his new science program - which is pick a book from a bin of science books, read for 20 minutes, pick one sentence to write as copy work. This kid HATES curriculum and writing, but did this enthusiastically! his writing was slow but probably neater than mine (I'm finally admitted i probably am somewhat dysgraphic)

 

then after dog walk, martial arts and lunch, we did the bravewriter game where they have to describe a shape for me to draw - was fun! (until i let teen draw and i got up to get a cup of coffee, and it turned out he'd drawn an alien . . no possible way that would work, so it was kinda demotivating)

 

then teen worked on finishing Hobbit (please, before we start LOTR lol) and younger worked on a fan fiction (um, free writing on the computer, i'll take that!)

 

but . . peaceful, easy, no fuss. woot!

[fraidycat]

We started our first FULL day today. Two weeks ago we did a couple "fun" lessons for two days - like art and Latin. Last week we did two days of the "boring" stuff - math and English. This weekend I did a whole bunch of prep and organizing and/or reorganizing and redid our daily schedule so I have a block of time with each kiddo for core/teacher intensive subjects.

 

Then...the kids slept in - reeeeally late. But, we pushed on and did our whole day anyway. We just got done a little before 5:00. But that's not too terrible, considering we didn't get started until after lunch, instead of after breakfast like we were supposed to. :001_smile:

 

ETA: I forgot to say how it went. It was good. Not great, not bad, but good. DS grumbled about getting started, both tried to give me grief in math because they'd rather skip steps - but I laid down the law and we past it surprisingly better than I had expected.

Edited September 11, 2012 by fraidycat

[sassenach]

Day 1. Could have been worse, but wasn't super.

 

I have major jet lag/insomnia and am feeling super foggy headed. Had to go into ds12's class to get him settled. Got home, and had a slow start. Math was surprisingly rough with ds10. That swallowed a good part of our morning. We didn't get as much as I hoped done before lunch, but after lunch went pretty smoothly. Library, orthodontist, dinner....it's all getting done, but not without a little pain.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Do tell me more about this one

 

This is it.

[celticmom]

We school year round but today was dd's first day of classical conversations ever. She enjoyed it and did very well. Then she came home and slept for 3 hours.

[nukeswife]

We started today and it went really well. At first I was surprised when my two older kids who've been sleeping in until 11 or later all summer were up/dressed and downstairs ready to go at 8:15, my kids never wake up before 9:30 so I made a big deal of it, joking around with them that there was no way they could be my kids and must be pod people or something.

 

After a nice leisurely breakfast and me finishing up bringing in their new cubbies I built and putting their binders away (which they helped with since they were up and I wasn't expecting that) we woke up their younger brother and got him breakfast and then started in.

 

I decided to do a slow build-up this year instead of jumping in all at once, so the first 15 minutes I spent going over my expectations and plans for the year, as well as going through their binders with them to show how they were set up.

 

I was so happy to see that my oldest didn't forget everything he'd learned in the first 7 units of JAG and did awesome on his grammar. My dd surprised even herself with her reading ability now that she's graduated from vision therapy and my little guy rocked his handwriting page. We took a nice lunch break and then they went for a scooter around the block. After that we did part of our Van Gogh Meet the Masters lesson and they loved it. They did a great job and I loved that they didn't rush through it. We'll do the project for Van Gogh tomorrow and they're excited that we start history tomorrow too.

 

Now hopefully the people that have to come and repair the couch tomorrow won't be to intrusive to our day. They are supposed to arrive between 10:30 and 1:30, so maybe I can get my kids working on their Van Gogh project which will take them awhile and then the workers won't be too much of a disruption.

[JustGin]

First day of 9th for ds. middle dd started last week (ps) and oldest is half started LOL. She's a senior and is doing electives at the ps, but finishing her life guarding job up, and won't start her hs classes until next Monday. Guess we're all over the board.

Ds and I had a very good day and I celebrated his high school launch with a mini blizzard (picked up when I dropped oldest at school) which made him extra happy LOL.

[fraidycat]

We started our first FULL day today. Two weeks ago we did a couple "fun" lessons for two days - like art and Latin. Last week we did two days of the "boring" stuff - math and English. This weekend I did a whole bunch of prep and organizing and/or reorganizing and redid our daily schedule so I have a block of time with each kiddo for core/teacher intensive subjects.

 

Then...the kids slept in - reeeeally late. But, we pushed on and did our whole day anyway. We just got done a little before 5:00. But that's not too terrible, considering we didn't get started until after lunch, instead of after breakfast like we were supposed to. :001_smile:

 

ETA: I forgot to say how it went. It was good. Not great, not bad, but good. DS grumbled about getting started, both tried to give me grief in math because they'd rather skip steps - but I laid down the law and we past it surprisingly better than I had expected.

 

:banghead::banghead::banghead: I'd just like to amend my statement from yesterday. It was Fan-Freaking-Tastic! Great! Awesome! Stupendous!

 

Today.... :glare: I'm pretty sure DD will be going to bed at 7:00. IF we ever get her school junk done. Gah!!!!!

[shanvan]

Trying to remember how our first day went......my brain is foggy this morning.

 

We did only TOG for day 1 on Mon. They got their books, we went over reading assignments, written assignments, what our TOG weeks will be like. They started their reading and I read Pride & Prejudice aloud (which they love). They wanted to go ice skating to practice for their lesson on Tues, so we did that, and they had the rink to themselves. They each did some dog training and piano and had a piano lesson. I think it went well, but we are building up slowly, so right now it's easy.

 

Yesterday we added math and that went well too. Dd was about to have a freak out b/c I was forcing her to do the same problem over and over until I knew she understood it, but I saw her control herself. Ds thinks he's going to love Geometry.

 

I'm not doing so well coming up with a schedule though.

[Jpoy85]

We school year round. Yesterday we didnt do lessons- C did do her Math book though and breezed through it. Today we are suppose to go to MOPS, but im not sure well make it or not. Then well do lessons. Im hoping it will be a good day!