Well I am going to do the "week in review" post for our first week of school! As I write this I am so excited to report that rain has come back to Texas. I do hope it decides to stick around for a while. In fact 39 days or so would be AwEsOmE! LOL

(Yes, the rain buckets are open and collecting!)

So we started school on Monday and by Wednesday our week was done. LOL - I didn't start out with that plan, but that is the way it ended up. Memaw and Papa stopped in for a surprise overnight visit on Wednesday evening, so we decided to take Thursday morning off to spend with them. Friday is not a usual school day for us, because we have co-op classes a couple of Fridays a month. So right now I don't plan to have school on Fridays unless we are catching up or the kids just need something to do to structure their day. Which will probably happen a lot more than I'd like. Ugh! But anyway, three days down, 177 to go...(sigh).

So you might remember in my last post I had a picture of the classroom "ready for our first day". Well as I looked at the pic on the blog I thought - ugh, the computer desk area is terrible. So I did a little reorganization before our day even began, it looks a bit better, huh?

Our day starts out with bible. I like this routine because it starts us our praising God and also we get to draw right away. I think Bug likes that the most. He's my artist and seems to get a kick out of our lessons. We are using the Stick Figuring Through the Bible from Grapevine Studies. It is a great curriculum. What I like is how the kids get to visualize the learning. LoVe ThAt part! Bug really seems to like the drawing and Red seems to be enjoying it as well. Although Red gets frustrated every once in a while if he thinks he didn't do it right. Thank you to my friend, Angela Perry for turning my head toward this great curriculum!

Here is Mommy's drawings on the board. Have to say that even I can't mess up stick figures. LOL

Here is Bug working diligently on his passover picture.

Here's Red writing his name on his page.

Part of Red's math is to put up the classroom calendar board. He puts up the month, day of the week and the date.

I picked up this Kindergarten assessment book at Lakeshore a few years back, but never actually used it with Bug. I figured I would with Red, so I broke this out this first day so we could see how he did. He wrote his name and numbers 0-9.

Here's Bug working with clay during our History discussion. He is so hands on. Sometimes there is a coloring page with the lesson, but on days when there is not, I get the boys to pull out playdoh or the linking blocks so their hands are busy during the reading and discussion.

Red's math lesson on the first day was graphing - we graphed our friends animals - Thank you to all our facebook friends for sharing "what kind of animal they had" with us! :)

I have this "extra resource" that I picked up somewhere a while back. It's a math journal and I am using it as a daily warm-up kinda thing. Bug completes one page before he practices he facts or works on his ten marks curriculum.

Here is Bug working on the computer - his first lesson for ten marks. I have heard such great things about teaching textbooks - but I admit it I am scared to spend all that money without knowing if it will work for Bug. My friend, Angela Perry mentioned Ten Marks to me last week and I spent some time looking it over and figured we'd give it a try. Since I was able to sign up for a monthly subscription, I am able to try it out for a lot less. I like this idea! Bug likes the reward system the most I think. LOL

Red started on Discovering God's World the Abeka first grade science curriculum this year. The first unit begins with a study about "us", so he decided to paint a picture using some of the beautiful colors God gives to us.

For our first day of school lunch we had sliders, green beans, salad and fruit! Woo-Hoo!

We are continuing the Reading Made Easy curriculum that we started last Spring with Red. He is doing very well (even thought he won't admit it).

I am not starting a "phonics" curriculum with Red just yet because I don't think he's quite ready. So we are just going to be working on letter sounds and how to write the letter correctly right now.

During "fine motor skills" time Red pulled out the fraction puzzle set and we had a mini-lesson on parts of a whole!

Bug's first science lesson went very well. We read from the book and discussed the brain and what it does for the body. We also discussed the spinal cord and where it was "housed" and the nerves and what they do. I had Bug bend over and touch his toes so he could "feel" his backbone. This helped him to "visualize" where his spinal cord is located.

Here's Bug reading in his science book. Red is playing with the magnets and listening to our discussion.

During Bug's computer time he played around on a couple of kids learning sites. He loves the computer!

I started Red on the Bob books. As he reads these he will get to put them on his "I read 100 books" chart.

Bug started using the Explode the Code books this year. I started Red on them last year (The ABC series) and he really enjoyed them. Bug mentioned several times that he would like to do something like that, so I found some books for him to start this year. He started in book 3 and seems to like it well enough. It's easy for him and he gets to do some coloring it he chooses.

The end of day 1 - Monday - September 12, 2011. The charts are clear and the work basket is full. The boys are filled with learning and I was good and tired. But I didn't hear one time "how much more school do I have" or "when are we going to be done".

At the end of day 1 the bulletin board was filled with wonderful work! Yippee!

Day 2 and bible is a hit again! Love it!

Bug's awesome work!

During our history lesson the boys decided to pull out the tangrams - they did an awesome job of working together to clean them up after the lesson discussion was done. Yeah Bubbas!

Red reading Bob book #2!

Bug working on his math journal - he was so excited because after he filled in the answers to the addition problems he was able to color by number the picture. He loved that!

For "art" this year you may remember my mentioning we are using the Draw Write Now curriculum. (Along with another Art for the very young curriculum. Well Tuesday was our first DRN lesson and we did a Hen (on the farm). I was quite proud of my hen! I am not a very good artist so to see a hen - that actually looks like a hen - well I was excited!

Here is Red's hen - the red next to the hen is the barn and the green is her eggs. She must live in Dr. Seuss's land (you know, green eggs and ham!) ;) Red wrote one sentence about the hen.

Here is Bug's hen - along with her golden egg and the barn. Bug wrote all four sentences on lined paper.

Day three of school began with a birthday card from one of our friends on Homeschool Swapping Adventures! Bug was so excited to received a birthday "post-card". The card said We hope you have a great "7th" birthday (instead of 8th), but Bug didn't mind one bit! Thank you to our new friend Joshua Robello and family for the card!!!

Here is Bug's I can Read 100 books chart. He is up to four books already and very excited (that he's ahead of his brother).

On Day three of History we were reviewing and learning more about Lewis and Clark and their discoveries in America. There was a coloring page for the boys to work on - they love this part! :) I suppose that's a good thing though, so I am certainly not complaining!

For math, Rd worked on distinguishing short and long - he used colored paper strips and then we "measured" them with linking cubes.

For Bug's Math warm-up he played a little game where he tossed two dice and adding the numbers. Then he colored a space for that number. He did this until one number reached the top of the chart. It was funny because he got really into the game and was rooting for certain numbers as they would "pull ahead". :) By the way # 8 ended up winning! Go # 8!!!

Red used one of the new file folder games today - he decided he wanted to do a "matching game" so he picked out the gingerbread men.

Daddy made lunch and brought it to the classroom for us - I went to the kitchen for something to drink and came back and found the boys under the table. The fan is their "air conditioning" unit - although it wasn't on. LOL

Lunch today included Daddy's yummy scrummy asparagus wrapped in turkey bacon. Oh my goodness these things are so darn good!

I am making myself hungry thinking about them! Anyone know if asparagus is on sale this week? ;)

For Red's "health" lessons I chose an early childhood health program - we used some of the lessons last year - they are fun and easy and light. I like that! And the boys do too! We chatted today about food groups and made out own little food pyramid so we could work on categorizing various foods.

Red also practiced making a capital A with the bingo markers. Pretty!

Bug is learning to type this year. He seems pretty excited about it. I am hoping this free Dance Mat Typing curriculum I heard about works. It seems colorful and inviting and easy enough, so I am thinking it will do find. Bug finished level one stage one and did really well. I am also hoping that it helps him with his "finger position" for the keyboard as well.

Well that was our week...it started off terrific and day two was super...day three was a little more of a trial - but I suppose every good week has to have it's bumps. I blame the full moon! Usually we school on Thursday (very light or car school) and we also deliver Meals on Wheels (community service/education); go to the library (obvious what that is); run errands (life skills) and attend swim practice (physical education). So this next week we will be more into our regular Thursday routine. Well that is the plan anyway - we see what God has in store for us when Thursday rolls around I suppose. LOL Until next time, Thank God for the RAIN and pray like crazy! we-