First day of HOME school

We did it! Daniel, Anna, and I made it through our first real "school at home" day today! We didn't get off to an early start, but it was a good relaxing morning. Over breakfast, Anna asked if we were going to have "school home" today. When I told her we were, she grinned and asked me if I was going to be "Mrs. Mommy". They both got a big kick out of that!

I walked through the homework plan that was given to us by our teacher. We talked about why you raise your hand to answer questions, good listening skills, and other great things that make Kindergarten such a wonderful time. We moved on to our journal writing - throw on the brakes! I had prepped Daniel on his assignment of thinking about the best thing about his summer earlier in the week. He finally decided that playing with his cousin was the highlight. It was a little bit like pulling teeth to get Daniel to talk about that topic. So Mrs. Mommy asked the questions, got some basic answers from the student , and tried to journal in a way that at least sounded like Daniel was involved in the process. It became more painful when Daniel discovered he had to draw pictures to describe the story. Wow - break time!

We moved on to reading our rhyming books (thanks Sister!) and then our math lesson. He L.O.V.E.D. the math meeting - it was about calendars, talking about days, months, years, filling in the calendar, etc.

Then it was back to the tough stuff. I think I mentioned that the class animal Bob Frog came home with us after the FIRST DAY of school. We had to write about our adventure with Bob AND, you guessed it, draw a picture about it! Again, the writing process was as smooth as crunchy peanut butter. I just kept telling myself to relax and that this was just part of the learning process. That worked pretty well. :) After much encouragement and coaching, Daniel proclaimed his work of art complete.

Actual Art and Inspriation Photo:

In case you need an interpretation, this is a scene from his grandparent's house in Parker (just east of Plano). Paw Paw (in brown) is driving an ATV, Daniel (yellow) is in the back seat holding Bob Frog (green) in his lap.

All in all, I'd give us all an "A" for the day. Daniel and I hung in there with each other. Anna was definitely always in the mix and playing along as much as she could. We will all continue to learn how to do this over time - I'm so glad we're starting in Kindergarten!!