Aug. 4, 2008 - Our First Day
I officially have a third grader, a first grader, and a preschooler. Yikes! We did a very light schoolday today. We only did history and the new items I needed to add to deal with the dyslexia/auditory processing problems we've got going on around here. Here's a breakdown of our day, imperfections and all ;)
- 4:00 a.m. Peanut (3) wakes me up. I put him to bed.
- 5:30 a.m. Peanut wakes me up. I put him to bed.
- 6:10 a.m. (moments before my alarm goes off) Peanut wakes me up. He refuses to go back to bed, but will lay with me now that daddy's gone. We both fall back to sleep.
- 7:30 a.m. Not believing the other two boys are still asleep (when was the last time they slept this late anyway?), I spring out of bed still wanting to start our schoolday somewhere around 8:30 (HAH!)
- 9:00 a.m. After getting everyone fed, dressed, and chores done, I take my shower
- 9:30 - 10:00 a.m. I hide the new school items in the back yard (after tying up the puppy) & we have our traditional "First day of school treasure hunt"
- 10:00- 10:30 a.m. I shoo the kids down the stairs to divide up their new loot. (10:10 - 10:12: I work with Peanut on the letter A . . . we'll get back to this one in a minute!)
- 9:30 - 10:30 Introduced both the kids to Earobics and let each have their 1/2 hour while I supervised in case there were any questions.
- 10:40 - 11:00 I work with Little Monkey (6) on his reading.
- 11:00 - 11:50 a.m. I work with Big Man on his Barton Reading & Spelling Program & introduced him to The One Minute Reader
- 11:50 - 12:50 Lunch, I read their history selection while they ate.
- 12:50 - 1:15 worked on map for history
- 1:15 - 1:30 tried to convince myself it wasn't a failed first day!
Okay, so we didn't do: math, handwriting, grammar, or Explode the Code and it still took us until after 1:00. I know today was absolutely not the typical day, but that's just discouraging! It did nothing for my confidence level with the whole tight schedule thing! It certainly will help me greatly if I don't sleep in 
I'm blaming today's sleeping in episode on Peanut. I'll blame him tomorrow too.
I think the favorite thing for my kids today was the treasure hunt as usual. We do this every year for our first day. It's always a hit. I buy all new school supplies as the Back to School sales are in full force. I included a magnifying glass for Big Man and Little Monkey this year since they'll need that for science. I also include a little treat (a container of mini M&M's for each child) as well as a simple book for each (Mickey Mouse, Star Wars, & Scooby Doo). What kid doesn't like new school supplies? Their pencil boxes are now completely filled with fresh pencils, crayons, glue sticks, etc. and all the old, broken things from last year are history.
Peanuts first day is a baaad look at what's to come. So, as his brothers are gleefully organizing their pencil boxes, I decide this is a good time to show Peanut what we do with some of this new stuff. He really liked his scissors, so I got out a page from our cutting book. He enjoyed that, but only for about thirty seconds. That's okay, I expected that. Next I pulled out his Handwriting Without Tears book to the letter "A" page. He said, "Oooo, dats A". I praised him, had him say "A says, /a/. /a/,/a/, apple" a couple of times. Good so far. Then I had him use his finger to practice the letter A "slide". He used his finger and did it the best he could a couple of times. I then had him do this with a crayon. He did it twice. He then announced: "I'M DONE!". There was nothing more that could be done, he had made his announcement. Total teaching time: approx. 2 minutes. Oh yeah, he's going to be an easy student. (If you know Peanut, you are NOT surprised!)
I'm not doing the Literacy Leaders with anyone for a couple of weeks. It is heavy on rhyming, and both my kids struggle with that. We will work on that before we add in Literacy Leaders! It was interesting to watch both boys do Earobics for the first time. It's an auditory discrimination/processing program. This is going to be a GREAT program for Big Man, and I think it will be a good thing for Little Monkey as well. I'll be interested in seeing how they both progress thru the different levels. On a positive note, we reviewed the last couple of weeks of our history from last year. I was impressed how much they remembered . . . almost everything! They could both still find the different places on the map we learned about (except the James river, which surprised me since they remembered where Jamestown was settled, and they knew that they settled on the river) This week is going to be geography heavy for us, especially Little Monkey. He seems enthusiastic at the moment, so that's good.
Tomorrow is a new day. I'll add in math, maybe handwriting. We'll see how I'm feeling then!
Comments
Aug. 4, 2008 - Sounds like a great first day!
Posted by kcmyworld
Don't beat yourself up. Instead treasure what you did accomplish and the fun you had as a family together. In the long run, that's more valuable than the academics anyway! Praying your tomorrow settles down a bit and you continue to enjoy yourselves.
Robin
Aug. 6, 2008 - Had to laugh
Posted by TreasureHeart
I randomly clicked on your site, form the main page and boy was I glad! I have not yet started, except for a min unit on the Olympics, but I know I will have days which do not go as planned! Sound as though much was gained anyhow, on the first day and it takes a bit to get in the groove. My son is dyslexic as well. Have you ever looked into the Brain Safari? I am thinking about it for all the processing problems it addresses. It is on the computer and seems interesting. Thanks for sharing your day!-Cassidy
|
|
This site owned by Enter name here |
|
|
|
