This (week of August 18th) is technically our 4th week of school, but this week we are going to begin our full load. By full load I mean our 3 days of the 3 R’s per week with the other two days set aside for fun and learning outside our home. It’s our second week with Baby C and she’s been nothing but a perfect baby today and has even participated with us in our activities when she’s been awake.

And so here is how our first {official} day went down in the books…

We began with our traditional First Day of Homeschool pictures. This year was so much easier to take pictures compared to last year!

After pictures we came back inside and it was time to get Baby C up for her 9:30am feed. Baby C drank her bottle in my arms while I read our Bible story to the girls. Then we read books together and even Baby C paid attention!

After Bible Time it was time for Sweet Pea’s preschool. We started Letter R this week. Little Bug either joins in with Sweet Pea’s preschool or plays on her own in the playroom and on this day she wanted to make a Rainbow Letter R too. The girls used our Dot Markers to make their Letter Rr’s colorful like a rainbow! Baby C was having some tummy time on a blanket nearby.

After Preschool Sweet Pea goes to her room for Room Time so I can have 30ish minutes to work with Little Bug in the morning on her Kindergarten work.

Little Bug of course chose to do her math lesson first! I am thrilled she is loving math so much. I was even able to leave Little Bug in the homeschool room working on her math while I went to lay Baby C down for her nap! And yes, Little Bug is eating her lollipop as promised if she smiled for school pictures.

After her math lesson, Little Bug had about 20ish minutes of Room Time, except Little Bug likes to have her “Room Time” in the playroom, which is fine by me. She wanted to look at books so on this day she sat right behind me and looked through a basket of books while I was siting at my desk having a little “down time” before taking the girls outside!

We headed outside around 11:15am. Dave was inside working and listening out for Baby C.

Around noon we came back in and the girls chose a Leap Frog DVD to watch. Sweet Pea chose Number Land. I folded the girls’ laundry, made lunch and fed Baby C her 12:30pm feed!

I love that my girls get to see their Daddy mid-day when he emerges from the office to make his lunch! It’s always a highlight to their day.

While I got Sweet Pea down for her nap after lunchtime, Little Bug played with Baby C.

While Baby C continued to hang out on the jungle playmat and talk and play with her new animal friends, Little Bug and I went to the Homeschool Room to do our afternoon school work. First Little Bug did her handwriting lesson (making the letter L from wooden pieces and magnetic pieces.

And then our wonderful first {official} day of school came crashing down with our phonics lesson. It wasn’t pretty and ended with both of us in tears. But, that’s real life for you. I am still learning how to manage my strong-willed child when it comes to being her mother and her teacher. I am still trying to find a balance between letting her guide her learning and me guiding her to things I know she needs to learn. The problem wasn’t with our curriculum at all. Little Bug got it in her mind that she was going to do xyz and, that was fine, however, I told her that before we did xyz we were going to finish our FIVE minute phonics lesson and then things blew up from there when Little Bug couldn’t do what SHE wanted to do when SHE wanted to do it. Story of my life with a strong-willed child. I am proud of this girl with her phonics lessons. This is the fourth phonics lesson we’ve done and I am AMAZED at what she can already do with three letter words.

The following day I pulled out the first BOB book of the first set and SHE READ IT! I was proud; she was proud. That made up for the negative experience we had had the previous day. My baby read her very first book to Baby C. Precious moment!

This is homeschool though. There will be good moments and moments I would like to forget. There will be days that flow beautifully and days when I will probably just have to throw up the white flag in surrender because no one is a mood to learn!

Overall, our first {official} day of school went pretty well. There were no bumps in our routine because this was the 4th week we had been doing the routine! Baby C is a Babywise baby and therefore very predictable which allows me to be able to plan our activities around her feedings and naps. And when Baby C is awake she is a complete JOY because she is well-rested.

Our at-home homeschool days (3 days a week) are going to be very busy. There is not much down time for me between homeschooling Little Bug and Sweet Pea, taking care of Baby C and taking care of my household duties, but this is my season of life right now and I do love it.

- Elaine