First Day of School!

Just quickly reporting (before I never get around to it!) that school started today and it went GREAT!!! :) I'm so excited about it! I thought we would have some problems because Benjamin woke from his nap about 15 minutes after we started, and then Nathan woke not long after, which was unusual. But I brought them both down and we were able to start right back up again, where I had thought we'd have to wait till the afternoon nap to continue, which was encouraging!

We started with Arthur and Matthew at the table. We close our eyes and I pray that God will bless us at school and that we'll have fun and He will help us learn lots. Then we get straight into Bible study - the first chapter of Leading Little Ones to God, which was really lovely. I replaced the hymn (which I don't know) with Our God is a Great Big God, which the little ones know from church. They did the actions while I sang it :)

Benjamin woke at this point, and I was glad to have the most important part of school done (learning about God!), but Arthur was soooo looking forward to maths and I really hoped we would be able to do it this morning instead of putting it off till possibly the afternoon. When I brought both the little ones down, I still had Matthew colouring at the school table, and Nathan got stuck in doing the same, and Benjamin seemed happy enough in the bouncy chair, so I thought we'd get back to it! :)

Arthur did his reading lesson and then some letter formation, and then we finished with Lesson 1 of his Right Start mathematics curriculum. It was a nice simple start and went very quickly. He really enjoyed it and was a bit dismayed that we weren't going to turn the page and start Lesson 2 right away, hehe! We'll do that tomorrow. I still can't figure out printing Math Mammoth off at the moment but I'm in no hurry because it looks like we can do Right Start daily and it will work well for him. He's DESPERATE to start using the abacus, but I think he has to wait till Lesson 7 for that!

Then they did some colouring, and we put all the school stuff away. I did have a tray out with animals and fish and sorting trays for Matthew and/or Nathan, but nobody used it today. They were happy colouring. After school I put on classical music while they play - I think I will try to make it different each day. Today we had Chopin and Nathan danced and twirled to it for ages with a big smile on his face :) Arthur said it made him want to leap and jump. I might keep a log of what we listen to and what the boys say about the music. I always encourage them to talk about how the music makes them feel and what it makes them think about, and what they think the composer was thinking or seeing when he wrote it.

Okay that is all because I need to make lunch, and breastfeed a tiny sweet thing - probably in reverse order! ;) He's starting to cry having just woken from another nap so I need to go. Just wanted to update about the first day of homeschooling RIGHT AWAY! I'm so excited about it and can't wait for tomorrow! Photos as soon as I can sort them out.