Name: Joseph

Age: 8

Height: 4ft 1in

Grade: 3

Most Excited to: do more science experiments

Future occupation: archaeologist

Name: John Paul

Age: 5

Height: 3ft 6in

Grade: Kindergarten

Most Excited to: learn to read

Future occupation: school teacher

Name: Emilie

Age: 3

Height: 3ft

Grade: Preschool

Most Excited to: bake and take care of Jude

Future occupation: chef and firefighter and mom

We started school this year with a 6 day old baby. Woohoo! And a daddy on paternity leave. Thank God! I woke up on the first day of school at 8:30am, after a rough night with the baby, to find Dan sitting on the couch surrounded by four kids and teaching math and writing. 

We've eased in to school slowly this year and haven't even done a full day or made a real schedule yet. But we're getting math and English done, reading Bible stories and books, reviewing a few poems, and starting to study France for our social studies. Speaking of France, Dan's course of study for his parental leave is French - with the hope of becoming fluent.

Root beer floats are the traditional celebratory drink for our first and last days of school. The kids drank (and looked drunk). 

First Day of School

It's been awhile... 

We took some first day of school pictures and did little interviews, but didn't post anything. So here it is, weeks and weeks later. 

Grade 1

Height: 3ft.8.5in.

Favourite colour: blue

Favourite subject: science

Most excited to do this year: build Lego

Future occupation: be an RCMP

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Preschool

Height: 3ft.1in.

Favourite colour: blue

Favourite subject: colouring

Most excited to do this year: build Lego

Future occupation: build houses on the ground and tree houses

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Toddler

Height: 2ft.5in.

Most excited to do this year: pull everything out everywhere

We are loving homeschooling again. It's lots of work and, sometimes, a bit of stress for me, but very rewarding for all involved.

Joseph did so well in Kindergarten last year. He is reading stories to the kids (!) and has beautiful handwriting. We started a new online daily math quiz this year in addition (ha! yep, that's what he's doing) to his usual math and he is very excited to see his progress mastering addition facts. 

Science remains a favourite around here. Mostly, they love experiments! But I'm trying to make sure they retain some of the information too, although it's not really the focus as much as discovery and fun. John Paul has been going around collecting leaves "to study" and yells "I found a compound leaf" every time he finds one. Something is sinking in.

Although John Paul is too young even for "preschool" he demanded I get him some books and has been very serious about his school work. He is now learning to recognize numbers and count objects, even while still not having the motor skills to write anything. 

Meanwhile, Emilie is our pest sweetheart. She is getting into everything! Markers, pencil shavings, crayons, books... anything left anywhere in her reach is liable to be used and/or destroyed. But everything is done with a sweet smile! We already had one cupboard (which can't be baby proofed) in the kitchen completely empty so she wouldn't take food out, but now she has discovered how to open the pantry and has been found munching on granola bars she opened for herself. It should be a great year!

In all seriousness, though, it will be a great year! I'm blessed with awesome little ones and they, I dare say, don't mind hanging out with me and learning stuff (most days)!

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school. That's me leaving in the morning. No, Joseph was not coming with me. He's, er, going to school elsewhere. I'll let Becca explain later.

After three days of teacher meetings, which I believed are designed to drive teachers so nuts that they actually want school to start (just to get the meetings over with), away we went.

How was it? Oh the usual. For the first half hour the school was flooded with parents trying to find their child's classroom. Then, because I'm scheduled to teach in 30 minute chunks, I proceeded to teach six morning classes in a row (with the exception of a shortened recess). By first recess my voice was shot. I was then emailed an updated gym schedule, which messed up my plans for the rest of the day, so I had to make it up on the fly. Room numbers were switched on me, as were teachers whom I cover. Schedules basically meant nothing. New students trickled in. The bell wasn't working. Then it was. Then the time it rang was changed, a few times. Then it rang at random times. Then the sound of the bell changed. Our new keys we were given didn't work on most doors. I was stuck outside with a class for a while. I was called to the office to receive hot off the press updated court orders regarding two of my students and a current custody battle. The RCMP showed up too, just to check on the situation. The grade two phys ed classes I taught were nuts. I don't know if any of these kids have been told "no" all summer. One kid blew up because he was told to jump over something. You're gonna have a fun life, kid. The afternoon was more of the same. Mix in some computers and projectors not working. More winging it. Crosswalk patrol was busy, and a student helper didn't show up. I'm tired. Why do I do this?

A typical first day of school. Of course as I dropped off another class to go and find my next group I was promptly given the biggest hug by a little girl in grade two. I wonder what her name is? She told me that I was the "best gym teacher ever!" Then I was mobbed by another ten little kids all rushing to give me a hug.

See you tomorrow.

First Day of School

It was the first day of school today. How nice.
Yeah that was sarcasm. On the other hand, I feel like creating a meme with the words:

"I feel sorry for teachers who have to return to school after such a long break," said no one ever.

That's right, suck it up buttercup. Actually, I am thankful to be back at work. So is our bank account. Anyway, here are some of my thoughts from the day:

Kindergarten Chaos - I taught my first ever kindergarten classes today. Two classes of phys ed. Tomorrow I have the other two kindergarten classes for phys ed. But this wasn't just kindergarten, this was fresh, fresh, fresh kindergarten. This was their first day of school, ever. I walked into their classroom in the morning to go fetch them to the gym. What I saw was absolute chaos. The only thing I can describe it as is to think of Joseph, in one of his difficult I'm-not-going-to-pay-attention-to-you moods, x19. I wanted to yell at a bunch of them. I almost did. But then I remembered that this was their first day of school, and they don't really know any better. I'll leave the yelling for later in the week.

On the plus side I was introducing myself to one of the classes and a little boy blurted out: "I like you!" I responded by saying that I liked him too. But then another boy beside him one upped him by saying to me: "I love you!" Umm... "Thanks!" I responded.

I had the classes run three times around the gym. Some of the boys were just huffing and puffing and shouting to me: "this is *huff* fun!!!" Oh boys. Later on our game of "blob tag" turned into a game of running around the gym without any direction or purpose. I must be an awesome teacher.

Sarcasm again.

I'm not cut out for kindergarten.

Grade Five Fun - Then I got to teach a grade five class an hour each of phys ed. and arts. ed. This was by far the most fun. I instantly had a good connection with the class and we had a great time. It was interesting to see how they viewed me though. I had them guess my age. All the boys were guessing 23, 24, 25ish. The girls were guessing 37, 40, 50ish! I would guess that the boys will be getting better grades from me than the girls will.

Christmas Three - At the end of the day I taught an hour of grade three arts ed. They had a fun time as well. I can sense that their teacher will be spending a lot of time disciplining them this year (as will I). They would be what you call a "chatty" class. No big deal. I'll handle them.

At the end of the class I played "two truths and a lie" with them, where they guess which one of my three statements I make to them is a lie.. One of the points I stated was that I hated Halloween. The kids were all shocked, and almost unanimously voted that this was my one lie. But it wasn't. I do hate Halloween. They asked why. I said it was stupid, what with all these witches and warlocks and such. I told them I'm more of Christmas person. Then one shy little girl very seriously asked me why I was more of a Christmas person. I simply responded: "because of baby Jesus." She nodded very seriously in agreement and said: "yes, I am too."

So that was my first day of school. Amazingly I have all different class tomorrow, and another 100+ student names to learn. It'll be like another first day of classes again. How wonderful!

Sarcasm again.