First Day of School
Well, today is a big day! First day of school for this school year. David starts 5th grade, Ana starts 2nd, and Abby REALLY wants to do pre-school. I'm always super nervous for the first day as each year brings new changes and new ideas I want to try out.
Changes for this year:
+ Pre-school for Abby. I'm not planning on doing much. Just a few basic things when she's interested. If she's not interested, I'd rather have her happily playing somewhere instead of trying to force her to learn something when she's only 4.
+ No babysitting kids. I'm still not used to that idea yet. It will be nice in many ways to only have my own kids for school days - though I will definitely miss the readily available playmate for Abby during school hours. Perhaps we'll have to borrow Grace occasionally when Abby starts to feel too lonely.
+ Longer days. Due to not having babysitting kids, I am working hard at adding more fun things to our day that I have neglected the past few years. We will have weekly art sessions, music sessions, piano lessons, some fun PE days, and more intentional about science and history. All those things add time, but I'm hoping that the funness of it will make up for sadness of doing more school. David will also be starting band this year. Weird.
+ More independant David. I hope. I will still have to do teaching stuff with him - especially on his harder subjects, but I'm hoping to doing more pointing in the right direction than teaching this year and also let his school work get done on a more unsupervised level and then check it for him once he's finished. We still dealt with lots of daydreaming/time wasting last year, but I'm hoping this year will bring forth a little more effort in that area. The sooner you do your work, the sooner you are DONE and won't have any homework!
+ Less time for me. Our day starts at 8:00, ends at 3:00 on many days. Of course I'll be able to squeeze in things here and there - load of laundry, quickly do lunch dishes, check my email! But my day is going to be significantly different in what I can get done and when I can do it. That's always an adjustment for me. Kind of like I have a job, but don't leave my house for it.
So I have spent last night preparing myself and the house for our first day. I have a hard time focusing on what I should when the house is a mess. So now dishes are done, things are tidied up, and table and desk are cleared ready for today's lessons. Yipee! Wish me luck!
Changes for this year:
+ Pre-school for Abby. I'm not planning on doing much. Just a few basic things when she's interested. If she's not interested, I'd rather have her happily playing somewhere instead of trying to force her to learn something when she's only 4.
+ No babysitting kids. I'm still not used to that idea yet. It will be nice in many ways to only have my own kids for school days - though I will definitely miss the readily available playmate for Abby during school hours. Perhaps we'll have to borrow Grace occasionally when Abby starts to feel too lonely.
+ Longer days. Due to not having babysitting kids, I am working hard at adding more fun things to our day that I have neglected the past few years. We will have weekly art sessions, music sessions, piano lessons, some fun PE days, and more intentional about science and history. All those things add time, but I'm hoping that the funness of it will make up for sadness of doing more school. David will also be starting band this year. Weird.
+ More independant David. I hope. I will still have to do teaching stuff with him - especially on his harder subjects, but I'm hoping to doing more pointing in the right direction than teaching this year and also let his school work get done on a more unsupervised level and then check it for him once he's finished. We still dealt with lots of daydreaming/time wasting last year, but I'm hoping this year will bring forth a little more effort in that area. The sooner you do your work, the sooner you are DONE and won't have any homework!
+ Less time for me. Our day starts at 8:00, ends at 3:00 on many days. Of course I'll be able to squeeze in things here and there - load of laundry, quickly do lunch dishes, check my email! But my day is going to be significantly different in what I can get done and when I can do it. That's always an adjustment for me. Kind of like I have a job, but don't leave my house for it.
So I have spent last night preparing myself and the house for our first day. I have a hard time focusing on what I should when the house is a mess. So now dishes are done, things are tidied up, and table and desk are cleared ready for today's lessons. Yipee! Wish me luck!
Good luck on school. You do a wonderful job...of course your job is not done yet...have not received my daily email. HA! I know that is at top of your list. :)
ReplyDeleteHey I hope your first day of school went well - good job getting the environment organized. That always helps me too!
ReplyDeletePs - loved the post about the "hamster toy". You are never lacking on cuteness with that one. :)