First Day

We started school this past Monday. I wish I could say It started with a bang, but I would be lying, unless of course the “bang” was the sound of me sobbing in my room. For some reason I woke up with this overwhelming fear of “what am I doing, am I making a mistake?” The only thing I could think of was that I was cheating Zoe out of her first day of Kindergarten. It started as I sat down to have some time with God. I decided to pray for all of the children heading off to school for their first day of Kindergarten, and then it hit me. I just pictured Zoe all dressed up and excited about school and friends and everything else. And then I just couldn’t stop crying. I immediately sent out a SOS to some dear homeschooling friends who have been at it for a tad longer than me, and they came through like champs. They gently reminded me of why I chose homeschooling and encouraged me in my calling, with words of wisdom and great verses to turn to.  I’ll be honest and say I continued to cry for most of the day, but mostly I think I just let my emotions get the best of me. By the next day I was great and we jumped in with enthusiasm and today we had a wonderful day. I’m sure I’ll have many more of those kind of days, but I’m going to just take it one day at a time.

Here are some pictures of the first few days. We are taking it slow. Zoe is more advanced than the beginning letters and sounds curriculum in Sonlight, but not quite ready for the next level, so we are flying through the first one doing a week in 3 days. We also started with read alouds, science- we are working on weather, phonics ( we are using Click -Start, a computer program) and Handwriting (Handwriting without Tears) Next week we start Math (Saxon) and Geography with a state study.  We will also continue on with the core Sonlight curriculum.

 working on the Letter M

 Zack and Ella (one of the little girls I babysit) They just do whatever we do, on their level- at least until they get bored.  We read a story on whales, they are putting together a whale puzzle.

 Zoe getting ready to do her phonics work on the computer

 The second computer picture I took after I realized how messy the computer was, Come on, yours looks like that too, right?  🙂

 Practicing writing our letters in cornmeal

  A little baking to end the day. Everyone needs chocolate chip cookies to end a school day.