Blow by blow of our first official day of school.

4:56 am- Awakened by my thoughts, I got up and quickly scribbled out grocery list. (Ha!  Beat ya up on the first day, Roan!)

5-6 am- Bought groceries at Walmart.

6-6:30- Put groceries away (I'm used to having help with this)!

6:30-6:45- I ate breakfast- cereal and prepared Loui's blanket in the living room with chocolate milk and a Noah's ark toy to play with.  Note- have cereal waiting on her blanket for her tomorrow. Then I said a quick prayer that our day would be productive, but mainly that the kids would enjoy themselves and that we would glorify God today.

6:45- Awakened children.

7-7:30- Morning devotions.  Prayer, read and explained Galations ch 1, character training in diligence, and memory work Psalm 103, then listened to Sing the Word The Heavens Declare Psalm 103 and closed in prayer for our church and family (took requests from kids).

7:30-8-  Made pancakes while Monk, Twinkle Toes, and Measle completed 2 pages in their Greek workbooks.  We reviewed our flashcards together.  AB worked on his letters until he spilled his OJ all over everything.  Note to self- 4 may be too young for multi-tasking at the breakfast table.

8-8:30- Morning chores and music practice.  I threw some frozen chicken breasts in a pot of water to get a start for making chicken squares later.

  

Power dressing for the first day of school, no doubt.

8:30-9:30- Individual study block 1 (Math for Monk and Measle and reading for Twinkle Toes). Twinkle Toes finished her reading in 30 minutes so I had her choose a different book to read for 20 minutes then she took a 10 minute break.  AB worked on shape sorting until he stepped on and broke the dollhouse staircase, which only took Big D two days to make!  Then I sent him outside to play for the remainder of the hour (along with his little sister.)  Mixed up and popped sausage balls in the oven.  Monk took the whole hour to complete his math.

  

  

  

9:35-11:05- Read-aloud and Language Arts.  Finished read-aloud by 10:30 and spent 30 minutes on LA.  Measle Bug (7) completed several sheets in her handwriting book while Monk (11) and Twinkle Toes (9) did the Sonlight LA dictation exercise.  Then I did a much easier dictation exercise from Spelling Wisdom 1 with all 3 kids.  Monk and Twinkle Toes then worked an exercise of Wordly Wise while I finished up the sausage balls and worked on the chicken squares.

I bought these Native American leather craft projects for the kids to work on during read-aloud, but did not anticipate that I would have to help Measle so much.  She kept getting it tangled and I was getting frustrated with her.  Of course, my husband takes a picture of this and not of me reading-aloud to the kids as I had requested!

All smiles again after Daddy praised her for working on a craft that says ages 12 and up. 

See what happens when a perfectionistic mother turns over a project to her 7 yr old?  You know what?  She loves it and doesn't care that she messed it up!  I sure hope the big kids' moccasins turn out better than Measle's purse!

11:05-12:00- Lunch.  Sausage balls, yogurt, apple sauce, and chicken squares.  Nana came and practiced piano with the kids for a few minutes, too.  I was thrilled to have LOTS of  leftovers for my freezer:  two ziploc bags of sausage balls and about a dozen chicken squares.

12:00-1:00- Individual study block 2 (Science for Monk, Math for Twinkle Toes, and Reading and LA for Measle)  Measle burnt out after about 20 minutes of reading aloud to me and 15 minutes of reading an easier reader to herself.  Twinkle Toes finished her math in less than half an hour and started directly on her science.  Monk took the whole hour for his science.

1:00-1:45- Individual study block 3 (Reading for Monk, Science for Twinkle Toes, Measle finished up her LAs)  Monk finished his reading in less than half an hour and by that time Twinkle Toes had already finished her Science since she started early so they both got started on art by 1:45.

1:45-2:25- Artistic Pursuits 4th-6th Grade Book 1 The Elements of Art and Composition.

Twinkle Toes' first drawing.

Monk's first drawing.  Even when he's unplugged, he's thinking about electronics.

Done for the day!

What did I learn?  1.) That I need more than 5 hrs sleep!  2.) That I've got to invest in a straight jacket for Louie.  (I'm thinking I could make a killing marketing straight jackets for toddlers.  They would come in cute colors and patterns.  I wouldn't call it a straight jacket, of course, but Cozy-fit or Mr. Snuggles or something like that.)  She only flooded her bathroom once, got into nail polish in my bathroom and painted her big right toe as well as some of her clothes, stripped down naked twice, and climbed onto the table every chance she got, especially when naked. 3.)  It's going to take Monk every bit of an hour to do his math and science assignments daily, but the reading this year is much easier than last year and will probably only take him 30 minutes.  4.)  Twinkle Toes has a hard time answering her science discussion questions in complete sentences.  I had to make her repeat them twice, finally holding her hand throughout the third time around.  5.)  Measle still can't be trusted to read chapter books to herself and understand them.  I'm going to have to let her read-aloud to me.  Ugh.  (This was when Louie was painting with nail polish in my bathroom.)
 
So I asked the kids at the end of the day which subject they enjoyed most and Monk said science, Twinkle Toes said art, and Measle Bug said reading her chapter book aloud to me (figures).  My favorite was our Sonlight read-aloud, of course.  I wonder if I have time to grab a nap before swimming at 4.  Probably not.  My favorite time of the day may be tonight as soon as I climb into my bed!

How was your day?  What did you learn?