Mama Dani's Musings: First Day of School 2012 (And a Peek into Our Setup)

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

First Day of School 2012 (And a Peek into Our Setup)

Today was the kids' first day of school. I'm not sure who was more excited; the kids or I. I feel much more prepared this year than I did last year. The day started with a small photo shoot:

Today went very well. I noted a couple of things to change around, like doing more planning for Maddy's lessons. Playing it mostly by ear worked really well with Sean but now that I'm teaching 2 kids at once, I think I need to change that. Mostly, I just need some activities set aside for her for when she gets done with her activity and is looking for more and I'm helping Sean with something. Today we had calender time, literature (Aesop's Fables - both), writing (journals - both), reading (word families - Sean), math (coins - Sean, number match 1-10 - Maddy), and geography (passport for our world traveling unit - Sean). Emily's sign says "no school for me" but today she did get introduced to baby sign language. She's starting to wave and trying to communicate so I figured it's the best time to start.

Pictures from today:

1 & 2: Journals ...Maddy just draws

3: Break to check out the newly emerged butterflies 4: Number match

And lastly, our set up:

Left is our calender. That and reading is done in the living room. We do most of everything else in the kitchen. The pictures at the bottom: 1: All set up for today. 2: A close up; the little cubby works great for things we need on hand. Next to it is our counting school days chart (to help Maddy with numbers). And next to that is my hand made filing chart (a lovely Pinterest find!) that holds papers for the week. 3: Our storage is a trophy case in the kitchen. The note cards on the side are a visual of the subjects we've covered during the day.