If you’ve been following along with us, you’ll know that this first day of our homeschooling year is one we waited for. (And waited, and waited..).   If you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me put it in a nutshell for you: We ordered all of our curriculum, and the bulk of it never arrived. We waited for weeks. Many calls between shipper and post offices were made. Then a big box finally arrived. a completely EMPTY box. More calls were made. New orders were placed. And we finally received all of the curriculum we needed, weeks after we wanted to begin our homeschooling year. Doesn’t that sound like it was fun? Anyway.

Needless to say, there was a LOT of excitement about beginning our new official school year! Getting this new morning routine going was a bit if a challenge for Michael and I, but the kids were ready long before we were! All we kept hearing from them  was,  “Are you guys ready for school YET?” lol.  (Isn’t that supposed to be OUR line?)

We started the day, like we start all school days, which is with family devotion together.  We most always have special intentions and the Lord’s Prayer and a Hail Mary together. We’ve also been through many devotion books already over the years-some better than others. But they all have generally included the day’s Scripture reading, and discussion. We can really get going and chat the time away, with discussion!   Recently, I ordered a new Kid’s Devotion quarterly magazine that has not yet started coming. But when it does, if it’s really good, I’ll be sure to blog about it. In addition to our family devotion together, {A} has her own teen daily devotional book that she loves, and of course, uses daily.

But until our new devotion book arrives, we can come up with plenty to do ourselves!  For this first day of school, we first talked a little about the year ahead, our plans, and each of us said our own special intention for our school year, to pray for together.  Michael/Daddy works for himself, so he was able to join us this first day.

A friend of ours, (Mr. Bill’s daughter, if you are familiar with the stories of him here on our blog), sent us a very thoughtful package for our family. There were some gifts for the kids, a gift card to a really nice restaurant nearby for Michael and I (that I have been waiting to try some day!), and a Mass card for our family.  Part of the Mass card had this beautiful, Prayer for the Family. We prayed it together, and Michael led it by reading it for us.

Michael and I had read it before, when we first received it, of course, and we loved it!  It just speaks to us.  So much so, that we are putting it in a lovely frame, and hanging it on our wall by some pretty ribbon.

In Devotion closing, we then prayed a decade of the rosary together.

The little ones got started in writing their names on labels, and putting them on their books.

Then we all got to the school work!

{A} has always tended to kind of do her schooling all over the place.  I guess it depends on where she feels like being, and what noise levels are here or there. But she started off this year in her room (well, one of her rooms. The other is having some work done, before we take this one and re-do it! lol).  When she needs helps, or needs us to correct her work, she lets us know through the school day.  Aside from that, we review and grade all of her work on our own time.

Generally speaking, here’s how {A}’s daily classes will go this year:

1) Math  2) Language Arts  3) Writing (program: Writing Strands)  4) Science  5) History & Geography  6) Latin  7)  Politics & Government

*Another free day of the week:   Art – Drawing & Painting Class

*Fridays-Teaching the little ones a class with me. : )

The the little ones now do most of our (book) schooling in the sun room.  We have a ‘school room’ where we used to school all of the time, and where we still store all of our schooling books and supplies.   We used to only school in the sun room in warm seasons.  But now that we have a wood stove out here, and it’s a 4 season room……..  .   It’s just that the light is SO plentiful and beautiful.  It’s simply a lovely place to be.

Generally speaking, here’s how the kid’s school days go, after family devotion:

{J, O & S}

1) Phonics and Reading 2) Math 3) Writing (program: Writing Strands) 4) Spelling and Vocabulary

Tues: Catechism, *Wed: Science, *Thur: Social Studies, *Fri: Introductory Sign Language

*These days classes are like bonus classes. They may get moved around, or bumped off on the occasional week because of a field trip or a big agenda day for their teachers. ; )

Art, music and PE are just things things they naturally cover in their life every day, without a real need for specified time for it, at their age right now.

One tradition we have upheld every year so far, for the first day of school, is that I take the kids school pictures.  (In the school room.) This is one day, I care what they wear.  On other school days, if we’ll be staying home, they can wear what they want. (And they have been known to get creative with that license!)  On the rare day, they may even have school in their pajamas! (It’s a home schooling perk!)

Here’s this year’s ‘chosen’ school photos. I got several good shots of each of them, so Michael made the final choice for each of them.  These school photos are just for us: for them and us to have as milestone photos of each grade’s school year, and for comparison of year to year growth shots.  The teeth situation sure is different from last year!

{A}

{J}

{O}

{S}

Oh, well this photo below reminds me of one more tradition we seem to have . . . . . . 

Smelling our new books!  Is there anything that smells better, than a brand new book?  (Well, maybe home made bread! lol)

Let me tell you how happy we are to be back in the swing of our schooling:  We got our books on Thursday. We had our first day of school on Friday, September 18th, and we happily did double lessons in every subject.  Today was our second day of school, and it’s SATURDAY!

Wishing you all a lots of learning and fun, this homeschooling year!

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