Our First Day of 'School' - Let the Eccentricity Begin!

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Posted on : 1:38 PM | By : Anonymous | In :

The first thing we did is talk about the principle of the day and read something out of the Bible. Today was obedience and we discussed who we obey and who we do not ('Do we obey our friends? No!).

Then we did some yoga and deep breathing to start the day. This is as much for me as it is for them.


I got some floor books for phonics and math for their grade level but they are finding them way too easy. Ah well they are fun anyway. They are sitting on their blankets, which they only use when we need to sit quiet and think.



Then the girls did their more difficult workbooks... Autumn wanted to learn her letters, and Ana (that's what she wants to be called now - sounds more mature) is into science, so she has a workbook on the solar system. Today we learned how many planets there are, what an orbit is, and what air is made of.




This is what Rainn did through all of this:


Then to kick start some ideas in their heads I suggested kings and queens and princesses to study, which was enthusiastically received. I used Konos Volume 1 to give me some ideas (and coincidentally the unit is about obedience too... hmmm how did that happen?). First we obviously had to dress the part. Please notice that no royal outfit is complete without gloves. To illustrate what obedience is I read the parable of the talents from Matthew 25 and we had a great discussion about responsibility, trustworthiness and how you feel when you do your best.



This led the way to some interesting reading. We read See Inside a Castle, and we looked at my art book to find paintings of royalty. They both observed that this king of Spain looked quite girly compared to the painting of the king of England, who was wearing armor. They theorized that either the English king was afraid to get hurt, or wanted to look braver (they are probably right).


Then Ana did some writing practice and drew a picture of a queen.



We took a break from queenliness so she could practice her reading as well. Rainn and Autumn listened to her read out loud for a few pages.


Then I was helping Autumn with the last bit of her coloring in her workbook, so Ana had me look up Queen Elizabeth and we watched her coronation on YouTube. Then she watched a bit of the official Royal channel on there (who knew the Queen would ever have a YouTube channel? lol).


That was the main part of our day. Now they are building with Duplo and tonight we will read another chapter from The Chronicles of Narnia. We are reading through them chronologically, and recently finished The Magician's Nephew so now we're on The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

I think first days of school can be quite stressful if things don't go as planned, so I try very hard to not have any expectations at all. We go in to have fun and if something isn't working, we stop and go on to the next thing or simply stop for the day. I didn't have to do any of that - the girls were so excited it was a piece of cake. I think I deserve a cookie. :D

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