Back in the Saddle

I haven’t written as much as I’d like lately, since the last two weeks were busy spent planning my seven-year-old’s birthday party and preparing for our upcoming school year.  Trying to do both of these things simultaneously is pretty much a guaranteed ticket to Crazytown.  We started “back to school” on Monday, and it was honestly a little rough.  We are not used to getting up early in the morning, because our summer was pretty lazy.  There are equal parts of me that feel good and bad being awake before 7:00 am.

I had finalized our daily schedule the night before and stuck it on the fridge.  Even with the best of intentions, what you put on paper doesn’t always translate neatly into real life.  Mainly because, well, I am trying to teach a first grader and a preschooler while also balancing housework and cooking meals.  There will be those moments when my seven-year-old wants to go off on a very looong tangent discussing some topic that may not even be remotely relevant to what we were just talking about, and my three-year-old has a meltdown because I ask her to do page 2 in her workbook instead of page 3.  And then the two of them bicker over something, even though I have taken great pains to make sure that they each had an equal amount of glue sticks, pencils, scissors, etc. in their caddies.

So by God’s grace and lots of caffeine, we made it through this first week.  This year, I’m trying hard not to take myself so seriously and go with the flow.  I struggled these last few days to find a groove, and figure out the best way to organize things, but the kids (especially Colton) are excited about learning.  And, I have to say that I love having a school room this year.  It’s so much easier to transition from one subject to another with everything all in one place.  We don’t have to clear books and science experiments off the kitchen table to eat lunch.  My husband convinced me to move most of the kids’ toys into their rooms, so the room is a lot less cluttered and functional now!  Anyway, here are some pictures from our first week:

Coloring pictures of rain forest critters and creating a jungle scene in a sticker book, since we are learning all about animals during our first quarter this year in Science.

      Rory practicing her counting.
Colton concentrating hard on his spelling.

Rory coloring in Handwriting Without Tears My First School Book. This rug is also where they like to gather for Bible reading, complete with pillows from their beds!
   Enjoying a new book in our “reading nook”.

Finishing the week with a field trip to the zoo!  Daddy came with us, because he has off on Fridays.  🙂

All in all, despite some setbacks, I’d say our first week of the year was a success.  I am trusting God for each new day, because I know I don’t have enough strength or ability on my own to do this!

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