A is for Alligator, Ants and Apples...

The countdown to homeschool is over and the first week is now complete!  Maiwen Rose has officially started grade 2… here at home. And she is already like a brand new child!  The girl who used to come home from school grumpy and frazzled and needing some down time- is now singing, smiling, skipping and so excited from when I wake her up in the morning until I tuck her in at night.

All in all I would say that everyone really enjoyed our first week as 'homeschoolers' :) On our first day of school we had a special 'welcome to homeschool' breakfast,

 and I thought it might be fun to do a letter a week as a theme for our learning.  So this week- to start from the start- it was naturally letter A week. We went to the library and took out books starting with A's, learned about Ants and made ant puppets...

...we read about Mrs. Applebee from 'Along the Alphabet Path' and coloured the letter A fairies, we found all our Alligators and let them be our guests for the week,  we got new Aprons with chef hats (I always wanted one of those!) and baked an Apple pie...

 ...we talked about Attitudes when we do our work and learned about our guardian Angels, we had 'Adventure' recess...

 ...we had an Apple 'taste test' for snack one morning where we tried 5 different varieties of apples and picked the most Amazing, painted with apples for stamps... (avoiding disasters with more Aprons;)... 

.... and when Maiwen and I needed to get down to business with her grade two work, all the kids wanted to be doing school too, so I tried to keep them busy with their own activities...

...and more than once it was necessary to strap the youngest into a booster seat, just so he wouldn't be trying to climb up poor Maiwen and draw on her page.   Thankfully he was quite amused with his drawing skills and I kept him either munching or averted to another activity (as far away as possible) for most of the crucial times.

Maiwen got right into her work and we plugged away at her readers & math books... and every time I was ready to pack up a subject, she would be asking ‘So what’s next?!’

 

She didn’t seem to be pining for the whole ‘back to school’ buzz, which was one thing that I worried about with starting homeschool after going to regular school.  I just remember how much I LOVED back to school… the back to school clothes shopping spree and picking out your favourite outfit to wear on the first day… getting your picture taken as you waited for the bus- with the crisp smell of the morning air you could just tell that it was September… The feel of a new back pack filled to the brim with sharpened pencils and unmarked notebooks… and ‘oh my goodness imagine I am in Mrs.____ class this year! Will there be a new student?  Where will my locker be?’…  Walking into a different classroom for the first time, the walls covered in colourful bulletin boards and feeling so grown up that ‘this is MY classroom now!’... Grade Two was even my favourite year of elementary... 


 I felt sad in my heart that Maiwen would be missing out on this.
  But the first day nostalgia did not overcome me and I knew that I had to make it wonderful and memorable and REAL for Maiwen.  We weren’t going to just keep on with the path of everyday life, minus driving to school in the morning like the rest of the kids.  This was going to be the start of a whole new life for our family.  A schedule.  A routine. Time for prayer and learning about the saints.  Time for crafts and fun activities. Time for snuggling with books and books and more books!  This was going to be the start of living what I had always dreamed for us- but never knew where to begin. 
This is it... the start I was hoping for.
  Maiwen I promise it’s going to be even better than a first day of school- whose novelty wears off all too quickly.... I promise I'll try to make this a special Grade two year for you too!