Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The kids 1st day of School

It officially happened.

Today was Jacob's first day of school.

And I was scared out of my wits.  I took more benadryl than normal in the hopes that I would at least try to rest last night.

Still, when that alarm clock rang at 7:15 am, all the worry came back.

The morning went well, I told Jacob no junk for breakfast, to at least add an egg to his breakfast.  And he did.  His lunch was packed and in the fridge ready to go, but I had no idea how or what was going to happen.  He's been in a specially contained room(special ed) for the past 3 years with very little introduction to how a normal classroom functions.  Today that was going to change.

As soon as Jacob was out the door(since he has to go to a school not within our boundaries I don't have to drive him or walk him, he takes the bus to the school less than a mile from our house, I'm serious, and I love being the mommy outside in her PJ's while everyone else is walking to school!), I gathered the other two children back up, and we went back to bed, no questions asked.  They HAD to, mommy needed sleep too, and luckily they all went to sleep no problems.




The only problem with taking a morning nap is great in theory but we got up at noon.  Half the day spent.

So Nat ate breakfast and excited, she proudly put on the prettiest dress she could find.  She was going to start school!  Homeschool!  (Homework she calls it!)

Not only was she excited, I was ECSTATIC.  It's always been my dream to homeschool my children.  To give them a quality education not corrupted by the public school system and their wordly views.  Ok blah blah blah.

My attempt to homeschool Jacob went down the toilet.  It was impossible to get him to learn anything from me.  So in my failed attempt, we realized he needed much more than mommy could offer, and with no other option, he receives schooling from the school district.

But my daughter, she was excited.  I however, am stumped.  What do I teach the child who knows EVERYTHING?  And she really does.  The decision to homeschool her a year early is because she's ready for a 3's preschool, but her birthday isn't until December.

So now the trouble is what do you teach her?  She already knows all of her ABC's, her numbers up to about 18(missing only 1 or 2 numbers), she can count to 5-10 on some days, knows all the important shapes, and colors. 

I decided over all, to teach her how to write this year, it's something she can't do, she can't even draw a straight line, I know that it will come in time, but it doesn't mean we can't practice!  I'm also looking into get a song/chant/finger play book to play with her. 

As for right now, we just have the left overs from Jacob, so we played with that today.  And I truly saw how easy homeschooling really is.  Especially with the right student.  Natalie was excited to learn and to play.

First we attempted to draw lines from baby animals to mommy animals(no go), and second we did our shape/puzzle boards.  They're from Melissa and Doug and teaches her how to place the shapes in the right spaces.  We discussed the colors of the shapes and what the shapes are.  I realize that she made need a little speech class too, which we'll work on because an oval is a "offul".


During this, Jacob's teacher called to say that Jacob was eating hot lunch at school!  And that was something I was worried about.  He had spaghetti, and "chicken nuggets"(I think it was supposed to be chicken parmesean she said), and a salad and juice.  So with that worry over.  Nat and I went back to school work.

We counted to 18 with her princess cards.

And then practiced her ABC's in her picture book



Afterwards, we took a break and watered her new babies.  Decided that the slide was to hot to play on(she didn't want to burn her but), and then checked the garden for fresh tomatoes and zucchini as we do everyday.


Lastly, we settled on painting pretty pictures for daddy, which last much of the rest of the afternoon.


I know we didn't do much as far as "schooling" goes, but I figured it was good for a first day.  I wanted to see how long she could sit there and do work, and start with something she knows.  I plan on doing more with her as time goes on, including planning a weeks work of activities and other things.

I didn't get a phone call from Jacob's teacher for the rest of the afternoon, so I got things done too.  Which was nice.  In addition to cleaning I finished a few birthday presents for my nephews and Natalie of course did more painting before we decided to get the baby up and go sit outside and wait for the bus.

As soon as the bus pulled up I sensed something might of been wrong.  The bus pulled over and stopped, and turned the engine off.

NEVER a good sign.

The doors open, and the bus driver gets up, and Jacob doesn't get off.  Instead everyone inside the bus is moving.  I wait a few more seconds but he's not coming out, I don't hear screaming, so I know that's a good sign, so I walk over and say what I normally say on a bad day and people are looking for something.

"Did he throw something?"

The "something" was his shoe.  And NO one could find it.  Not me, not the bus driver, not the other 2 students on the bus.

So Jacob came home with only one shoe, and he cried as he watched the bus pull away with his shoe.  I told the bus driver to look for it and deliver it to us tomorrow morning.  And all Jacob could think was that I was going to send him to school with only one shoe(I totally would if it was legal, just to teach him a lesson so he's not exactly wrong in his thinking).

After he calmed down he told me all about his hot lunch and how much he enjoyed it and that he was going to eat hot lunch the next day too!( I totally did not send enough money for a month's worth of school lunches!  1 school lunch is 2.25!)  He told me all about the salad that was "Not like the salad you make me mommy, but I tried it and it was GOOD!"  :)

His point sheet was less than encouraging but not terrible either.  He shoved his desk(he didn't throw it so this is an improvement), spit on his desk(also an improvement he didn't spit on anyone else!), and threw papers.  Nothing new. 

So overall both children had an excellent first day of school and Natalie was very proud to show daddy all the homework she did.

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