First day of school

Today was our first day of school!  I am trying to build better habits in our kids; right now we are working on having everyone make their beds after they get up.  Sam has been doing this for years, but the younger ones are a bit slower to catch on. :)  Josiah did a great job making his bed, and he also cleaned off his whole dresser without being asked, just to surprise me!

 We did our annual tradition of measuring the kids' growth . . . we always try to do this around the first day of school.  It's fun to see how much they have grown this year!  Josiah is still on track to be the tallest if he keeps on growing at his current rate.

 The kids enjoyed a yummy breakfast treat of Amish baked oatmeal . . . 

 Then we went outside to take pictures with grade signs for each of them!

 Someone is excited to finally be in Kindergarten! :)

 They picked the location and posing arrangement

 We came back inside to tackle schoolwork then.  We have a couple of *ahem* somewhat reluctant scholars, but overall they did pretty well with focusing.  Josiah, on the other hand, would have happily done at least twice as much work as he had to do for today!  He did 4 extra lessons in math. :)  Here he is doing his very first handwriting paper with intense concentration.

 I'm especially excited about our plans for Bible this year.  Instead of using Sonlight's Bible schedule, I decided to do something different.  We will be using The Heart of Humility every Monday--this is a family study of Philippians 2:1-18.  We are using the handwriting curriculum that goes along with this, and hopefully we'll be memorizing this passage as a family over the course of the year!

 On the other school days, we will be using The Dig for Kids: Luke, Vol. 1.  (Sorry for the sideways picture! :))  I'm looking forward to digging a little deeper into specific passages of Scripture with the kids this year, instead of just reading through several books of the Bible.  I think both of these studies are going to be really good for all of us!  I'll be reading and discussing the lessons with them while they eat their breakfast each morning.

 Here is a picture of most of the school books we are currently using, along with our instructor's guide.  Lots of good stuff here! :)  A basic rundown: 

Josiah: Singapore Math Earlybird, A Reason for Handwriting K, Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading (along with LeapFrog Letter Factory and Word Factory), God's Design Science (The World of Plants)

Julia: Singapore Math 2A, All About Spelling Level 2, Writing With Ease Level 1, First Language Lessons Level 2, Write Through the Bible Handwriting, God's Design Science (The World of Plants)

Sam: Singapore Math 4A, All About Spelling Level 3, Writing With Ease Level 2, First Language Lessons Level 4, Write Through the Bible Handwriting (cursive), God's Design Science (Heat & Energy)

Plus I will be using Sonlight Core D with Sam and Julia, and parts of Core P4/5 with Josiah for history, geography and reading.

 It's impossible to get a good picture of the front of the IG, but here's my attempt.  I had fun designing a new cover for this year!  I forgot to do one last year, so it was nice to get back to doing that.

 School didn't take up the whole day . . . we also enjoyed a visit with friends, and picked a bunch of veggies from our gardens.  The harvest is really coming in lately, and I have lots of zucchini and beans piling up!  I love fresh veggies. :) 

Tonight I read (and loved) this post from Ann Voskamp: Five Secrets for Every Day One: First Day Back to School.   So, so good.  What a great reminder on our own first day back!  

I have many more adventures and summer happenings to update about . . . we've been so busy the past few weeks that I just haven't gotten on the computer.  Too many things spinning around in my head to blog about, but hopefully soon I will have time to share a bit about them. :)