Our First Day of School Pictures
We started out with a Daddy Donut Day!
Then took pictures holding up the grade level we are in!
Then we put our backpacks on and headed to our new homeschool class called Classical Conversations – which we will be attending one day a week! (for details about this class – I wrote about it here)
Here are the kids outside their new classroom. We meet at a local church. There were first day butterflies that quickly subsided once class began.
Here they are with the entire group during opening session.
They start out with pledges and then family presentations. Alexis volunteered to hold up the pledge words (on the far right)…I’d say she’s just like her mama getting up there with no fear but later she played shy a lot so I’m still learning about her personality.
They have a fantastic teacher! (actually they call them tutors because I am their teacher). In this picture she is teaching Latin with hand motions.
Here they are tracing the 5 states of the week. They will be memorizing all the states and capitals this year.
After 3 hours of class, the kids head to the church’s indoor slides for recess. Afterwards, we go to the cafeteria to eat lunch together.
Then we head back home to do the rest of our homeschooling at home.
It was an excellent first day. The kids loved class and made new friends! I’ve remained on schedule with my cooking and cleaning but I lost my voice on Wednesday, so we have yet to implement our NEW homeschool schedule. I’m on anti-biotics and drinking hot tea with honey and praying I’m all better soon so we can dig into our new curriculum! (If you remember last year’s first day of school ,we had a mishap of a toilet overflowing and running into our kitchen light fixture! It seems that first weeks do not agree with us lol!)
How was your first day?
Walk with the King,
So awesome! What memories.
Love,
Traci
Looks like a lot of fun! And it looks like they are holding hands, walking back home.. LOVE that! Hope you feel better soon
So adorable! I want to see the kids in your dress and husbands shirt! That is the best idea, we will be using it once ours are older!
Rebecca – since I’ve been sick – we haven’t done it yet but we will and I’ll try to post the pics!
Courtney,
On the very first day of our first year of homeschooling (14 years ago) we walked outside to find a tiny baby squirrel that had somehow turned up right by our front door. This meant finding a box, calling a vet for instructions, etc. This turned our day upside down (yet, made a great Science lesson!). Then, it seems that every year after that, we always had some major event on the first scheduled day!! I don’t know what that’s all about, but for all of these types of situations, I’ve been 100% happy and thankful that I wasn’t having to rush my kids off to school while trying to “do” life at the same time!
Maybe it’s just God’s way of reminding us that “LIFE” is what comes first. Education is just part of what we do.
I love that you get to home-school! I want to homeschool so bad but it is so tough in our small town because I do not want my kids to not have the socializing……I am so torn! I wish we lived in a bigger city that had more involvement in homeschooling!
We don’t have any homeschooling co-ops or such like and I’d love to reassure you that the kids do absolutely fine. In fact, three of our kids are now teens, and I see them socialising with others, whether at church, or at swimming club, or with folks who come visiting to our house…. This is not to boast, but they are SO much more sociable than most other teenagers I see.
I can almost guarantee that you would not regret making the decision to homeschool. (We live in a small community on a Scottish island, so I know what ‘small town’ life is like 🙂
Cute pictures 🙂 Your kiddos are adorable! What a neat opportunity for your kids to still be with you yet get out of the house, interact with others and a great support for you. It is a win, win situation! My youngest starts Kindergarten next Wednesday. He is excited and I am sentimental 🙂 I love that Kindergarten enthusiasm!
Blessings to you and your kids, looks like they had a great first day!
How nice to have a day with a “tutor” extra help when it comes to homeschooling is always welcome, right 🙂
and Oh my your daughter looks just like you and your son, looks like his papa, they are adorable!!!
I think a little treat like donuts is a great way to make your kids look forward to the day and to offset the jitters. Sure sounds like some excitement last year on the first week of school!
yea! well we are in day 2. there have been tears and attitudes! but alas i have shed none and i’ve stayed patient! wowza! I’m already seeing sooooo many benefits of doing this. I will archive this comment so I can pull it up and read it in January. lol
ps. I will not deny or confirm if PS threats were made already. lol
Flamingo – Thanks for the laugh! You sound like me with the Wii! Hang in there! 🙂
Wonderful! 🙂 I love how you are so organized with your scheduling. I will be starting ORVA with my daughter on September 7th, and I am really excited, and nervous. You have been a great inspiration to me during my quest to start homeschooling. I will pray for you to get better fast.
We haven’t started yet. I’m pulling together some final stuff before we start on Sept 6. But we will be learning the pledge to the Bible and Christian flag as well.
Oh Courtney, our first week was a disaster. We did go with a virtual academy here. (I hope this post doesn’t read as me tying my virtual experience to yours in any way. You loved it and it worked well for you. And naturally, my decision was made independent of that. ) The school was *wonderful*. There are so many things I loved about it, great learning tools that I’ll struggle to give my kids in our usual homeschool. However, in the 3 days we participated, it was total and complete overload. My kids need more computer/keyboarding skills (painfully aware of that now)I. Immediately, we were tackling spreadsheets, graphs and charts, tons of training videos, and had upcoming live lessons. Did I mention I can only type and that I’m not experienced in technology (nor very interested)? They all needed me one-on-one and there was simply no rhyme or reason to how I could do that. I’ve been getting into bed at 1am, getting up at 7:30am, and schooling 9am to dinner or later for 3 days straight. Totally stressed out. Dh laid down the law today. H e wants a wife and mother back. He wants a flow to our days. He wants an enjoyable, relaxed (as realistically possible) learning environment. This was sadly not the case in our new venture. 🙁 I have to order our former curriculum and work hard to get a year planned now, asap, so we can be in full gear within 2-3 weeks. Please say a prayer for me, would you? Sorry for the down post. I really did enjoy seeing the photos and reading about your first week. This is how it should go (and yes, I recall the hilarious, but yet not so funny, lol, flooding incident last year).
OH dear! 🙁 I am so sorry Toni! That’s crazy and definately toooooo much school! My sister taught her 3 boys using K12 with OHVA for 7 years into the higher grades and I was over all the time – it was VERY relaxed – with the boys working independently a lot. As far as spreadsheets, graphs and charts – we didn’t encounter anything like that nor did we have ANY videos – everything was right on screen each day – simple dimple! Hmmm….I’m so so so so so sorry 🙁 Are you sure you don’t all just need a few more days of settling in. (oh and the virtual classes were optional for us so we opted out on those) I feel just awful for you (and by the way – you have been on my mind because I was reading a book just today that addressed the very issue you emailed me about – I plan to email you in the next day or two with my thoughts!)
I am praying for you right now! So sorry girl!!! Please let me know how this all turns out. Cyber (((Hugs)))
Lots of Love,
Courtney
Hi Courtney,
I wish we felt confident that more time would have helped, but we just didn’t get that sense. After much agonizing over the very positive aspects of the virtual school and what we would have to pass on if we decided to withdraw, both my dh and I felt it was not working out to be the kind of schooling experience we needed it to be. We anticipated that as the projects and assignments grew in intensity and the live lessons kicked in, I was going to be even more stretched to meet the kids’ learning needs. The graphs (excel spreadsheet “stuff”) were for our 7th grader, but our 3rd grader was going to be learning to submit her language arts via Word documents, etc. We were in over our heads. 🙁 Thank you for your prayer, Courtney. I’m coming to terms with this and God has taught me several important lessons through it, for which I am thankful. I appreciate your consideration of my other email as well. Really struggling with that issue.
Blessings,
Toni
Hey Courtney,
So glad you guys had such a wonderful day! I hope you get your voice back soon!
God Bless!
Since I am a visual person, I thought I would share my blog post from our first day of school last week (Monday the 15th). http://organizedhomeschooling.blogspot.com/2011/08/lukes-1st-day-of-kindergarten.html
We did the same thing you do – Donuts with Daddy. We went the night before to get them because Daddy needed to get to work (he has a 45 minute commute). It was fun. We took lots of pictures. He got his own library card. We did our school day. We hit the park for lunch and play with friends. We went to Andy’s for dinner with Daddy. It was so great!
Today was our 1st day of CO-OP. We are going to a local church where my son has two classes, I serve one class time and have a Bible study one class time, and my baby has nursery until he is old enough to have some preschool time. It was awesome and everything went off without a hitch. My son’s classes are Lego Building (architecture) and Inventors Who Changed the World. He loves them. What a great addition to what we are doing at home.
So much fun! I can’t wait to homeschool in a few years. I was a K teacher for 12 years, but my heart is to teach my own. I have a 2 year old and a 3 month old. I love getting ideas from you and all the homeschooling blogs I visit. Have a great year with the new curriculum. Looking forward to learning how it goes.
These photos are adorable. And I love the way you began the day with donuts… such a lovely thing to start each year with a fun memory. Treasures 🙂
Anne x
Courtney, in spite of your illness it looks like you had a very successful day… good for you!
Aw, yay! That sounds like a lovely first day! Sorry to hear about your voice though–I hope you regain it soon! 🙂
This looks AWESOME! I know that church well…lol. I have frequented their playroom!! So happy for you guys that this is all working out so well so far..it looks like FUN!
This looks like so much fun! What a great way for Homeschooling families to share in the journey together. I wish we had something like that here! 🙂
Cassandra @ Unplug Your Family
I think I saw my friends Mel, Tami, Terri and Maggie (tutoring) in those pics! A few months ago my sons and I visited for the open house day but it wasn’t going to be a good fit for our family, otherwise, I would be in that group with you. Lots of great ladies there!
We had a GREAT first day!!! Woo hoo, can’ wait for Tuesday. HUGS and hope you are feeling better by now.
meant to type … “can’t wait for Tuesday.” ;o)
I will recommend not to hold back until you get enough money to order goods! You can take the loan or secured loan and feel fine
Hi Courtney!
Just been looking at the different things you’ve done since you have been homeschooling. We currently do virtual public school but are planning to switch to doing in on our own…
I see you did classical conversations, but for your reading, phonics, handwriting and math, what else did you use for first grade? Sonlight and Abeka have kits, and then saxon has math, but I’m feeling like it I break them up, they’ll be very expensive… What did you use?
Thanks in advance!
I have been following your blog now for about 3 years, I love your book and I’m staying Joshua along with you as well..
In His Love,
Kristin Chacon