Our First Day of School was July 21st! We are starting earlier this year for several reasons. One, I wanted to give us a gradual, slow start to the new school year. Two, we are going to be keeping my friend’s 4 month old baby girl for five weeks beginning August 11th so I want our new routines to be established before we add in a baby to our fun! Third, we are going to be going on vacation to the mountains the first week of August. Beginning early allows us to get a jump start on the school year and to have our routines in place before Baby C joins us.

As always, we began our day with Bible Time. We read the story of Saul and talked about how we are missionaries too.

We read books together on the couch after Bible Time. The girls each pick two books to read. We are going to read our Science books during this time too. On this day we read My Five Senses and The Five Senses.

It was then Morning School Time. We all went to the Homeschool Room where we did Calendar Time and worked on the Preschool Calendar Notebook. The girls will take turns finding the number for each date. Little Bug went first. She marked the “12” instead of the “21” and then she found the “21”. I think this is going to be very good to help with number recognition!

After Calendar Time, Little Bug went to play in the playroom while I did preschool with Sweet Pea. I introduced a new letter to Sweet Pea and she glued jewels on her Letter J. Little Bug became interested in what her sister was doing and I let her join. I have the lowercase letters printed too just incase Little Bug wants to join us.

Both girls had some Room Time and then it was time to go outside. Grams and Gramps were driving by our house at the time and stopped in. We all went for a walk in our neighborhood! After our walk we came in and the girls watch a Leap Frog DVD, Talking Words Factory.

We ate lunch and then it was time for Sweet Pea to take her nap. While I got her down, Little Bug worked on this puzzle.

Once Sweet Pea was in bed, it was Afternoon School Time with Little Bug. I showed Little Bug her workboxes for the week. She had 4 boxes to choose from; once our school year officially starts on August 18th, she will have 10 workboxes per week.

Little Bug chose to do Math first! She did lesson 3 of her Horizon’s Kindergarten Math. She had found the book last week and literally begged me to do some lessons. She did lessons 1 and 2.

Little Bug wanted to do another lesson, so she chose a Handwriting Without Tears lesson. She was to make a “Mat Man” with the lines and curves that she will eventually use to form the letters.

While she was playing, I asked her if she could spell the word “cat”. She didn’t want to at first, but then I could see the wheels turning and she started trying to spell the word. She did it, but first she put the letters backwards.

Then it was time for our favorite time of day: Read Aloud Time! We are reading Little House in the Big Woods. We read a chapter and then it was Rest Time for all!

This was a fabulous First Day of School. Much improved from our disastrous last year’s First Day of School!

(Links to much of what is included in this post can be found here.)

- Elaine