First Day/Weeks Of First Grade!!!

I wasn't sure how this would go. New town, new house, new school, new grade...it is a good reason for emotions to run high.

Having Meet The Teacher the week before school started helped immensely. Not only did Lorelei get to meet her teacher, but she got to see her classroom and meet a few classmates as well.

The morning of Lorelei's first day I heard Makin ask how L was feeling and specifically asked if she was scared. "I'm really, really, really excited and just a tiny bit scared," was her answer. That gave me such a huge relief. She didn't even seem too nervous for her photo shoot! :) Loved it!

M and I hung out at Starbucks (we needed a date to help us both not be sad, and to show Makin there are perks to being younger!) and ran a few errands before heading home. Then we were super excited to see what L would say at pick up! This was my first-ever experience with a large school pick-up line. Will take some getting used to! Mrs. White brought her to the car and sounded as excited as Lorelei did. They seem to be a great match, which has me extra excited for 1st grade! The first words from Lorelei were, "Mommy, guess what!? I made new friends!" :) What a great first sentence to hear! She had nothing but positive things to say about her day, and gave me a super tight hug when we got parked.

We headed for our usual ice cream celebration (Braums!) and she was excited to see that a classmate was in the parking lot too! Her classmate's mom said, "She chose Braums because Lorelei was going there." :) Fast friends makes this mom one happy lady!

Friday came our chance to see what a more full home-school day would look like. It was a very hands-on day, which was great for all of us. Fun activities talking about the 5 senses, trip to the library, etc. One of the best things was that Makin could participate! (One of my biggest fears/challenges is going to be keeping him entertained while big sis needs quiet and attention to do her work.)

(For those of you studying our house in pics...
this was a table left on the patio from someone previously and has now been moved to the garage. :) )

We finally got a feel of our first full week of school this week. I do think that we will be able to complete all our work before lunch at this age, so very excited about that! (Mary is home-schooling Aubrey and she will likely have to go a couple of hours after lunch, but that is 3rd grade.)

Right now our biggest challenge is reading. Lorelei thinks she should just be able to read like a pro already and gets frustrated extremely quickly when she does not know a word, and does not think she should have to sound anything out. I plan to chat with her teacher about what I need to do to keep her from getting so frustrated. Right now she loves books but dislikes reading. :(  I think she is a little rusty from the summer, so I'm going to have to find some ways to give her extra practice to make her more confident and calm.

Makin seems to be getting the hang of keeping busy on his lessons and being respectively quiet for his sister. I'm going to have to have plenty for this kid to do though. He went through 5 worksheets by 10 AM! (No, he does not HAVE to do worksheets. He actually picked out a PreK/K book and asked for them. He also gets to choose anything quiet that is not distracting!) And no, I am not above bribing him with a chocolate chips reward for staying quiet while she does 20 minutes of reading. :)

This girl came home from school Tuesday elated to play her new musical instrument. Her class will be learning how to play the glockenspiel this year. I loved seeing how excited she was about this. She has music Tuesdays and art Thursdays.

In case you are curious about our exact schedule, here it is...

MWF- home school days. (So far, it appears Fridays are a bit lighter. Not sure we will get to the point of having them totally off unless there is a special reason...like a field trip!? Then we would have to put more time in on MW.) We get a checklist of lessons to accomplish each day from the teacher by midnight Saturday we print and then know what we need to do for the week.

T/Th - Grace Covenant. She gets dropped off around 8AM and picked up at 3:10. (And no homework after school!!!)

Now you have a great picture of our weeks around here! Hope you enjoyed! I'll have to see how we fit in these school posts with our everyday blog posts. :)