Our First Day of School /Thoughts on a New Homeschooling Year

We really view homeschooling as 24/7/365, and the world is our classroom. But in early September every year, we begin the new cycle of academic plans I spent the summer putting together, as well as fresh new books.  Some homeschoolers do not ever refer to grade levels for their kids, but we tend to.  While they may work ahead of their grade level (or behind if necessary), in any given subject, they generally are all at a grade level. So for all intensive purposes, we have a 6th grader and 3 1st graders this year.

If you haven’t been able to tell, we all love school around here.  We just love what and how we do it, and love that we can. : )  But there is something especially exciting about the beginning of a new school year. I get butterflies when the boxes of new books start coming in, and everyone is begging to open those boxes, too!  We all love the feel and smell of new books.

And then there is all of the new school supplies. Freshly sharpened pencils crowned with perfect erasers, that new special pen, notebooks filled with fresh white blank pages, just waiting to be covered in the new knowledge that awaits us.  And then there is the new crayons, so beautiful you hardly want to use one….but you can’t stop yourself……the fresh set of paints….the folders you can’t wait to put something in.   Yeah……there is something thrilling about new school supplies.

This year, being our 4th home schooling (the first 2 only being with one school aged child, formally), I am more prepared and organized than ever. We really want to be better at living the Liturgical Year, as we are called to do by our faith anyway. (We are Roman Catholic.)  It’s a lot!  We did make efforts last year, and very much enjoyed what we made time to do, but we know we can do better. We WANT to do more, because it really is so spiritually fulfilling, for all of us.  So each school day, we will start as we always have, with our Daily Devotion, which in simple terms, is family prayer/scripture study time, and lots of discussion, together.  There is much more to study, always more to learn, and more implement more regularly in our faith-practicing daily lives. The greater hope is to  bring us closer to Christ, which is the point of every single day.

Other than that, {A} is very excited to start Latin this year, and {J, O and S} are super excited about having ‘Spelling Quizzes’ this year! That “q” word just makes the giggle with anticipation.

Next we’ll just share some photos from the day, with possibly brief explanations. Keeping in mind, this blog is a record for our kids’ memories, as much as sharing with others.

So we starting the first day with Devotion, outside.  After prayer, we learned about St. Gregory, as it was his Feast day, and then the kids sang some songs and the dances that go with them, which they learned at VBS.  I should have video’s it for you all, knowing how cute they were going to be. But alas, I only took photos.

Here they are rump-shakin’ and a-raisin’-the-roof, praisin’ the Lord!  lol. (Can we get an ‘Amen ‘?!)

Then it was time to go in for some more formal work.

They just did some writing, copywork, math, direction games, and had an art/drawing class – which they very much enjoyed.  We started with all of the formal subjects the next day.  {A} did all of her subjects for the day.

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Oh, and how we can I forget ‘First Day of School’ photos?  I came across LAST YEAR’S first day photos, and was blown away with how much they have grown and changed!! I thought it would be fun to share them and post them side by side.  Unreal.

I sure wish they wouldn’t grow like that.  Must be all the food they eat. But I’m glad I take so many photos, so we never forget.  I hardly remember {A} looking so young and little last year.

Here below was our whole gang last year. I guess I didn’t take this group shots this year, for the first day. And {A} had hers taken in one of the rooms she loves to do her school work in most – the sun room.

Later on in the day, every one spent more time doing some casual reading. (They all love to read and read around here.)  I only took a couple more shots of {A} and {S}.  As I’ve posted these photos tonight, I see the color is looking off (only) on the blog.  I’ll have to look into what the deal is with that but, I’m sure you ‘get the picture’. lol’

Well…that’s about it. I’m tired now. Are you??  (And do you smell somethin’?)