School School...Home School...

We started our school year this week! We are using Heart of Dakota  this year for school. Roo (5.5yo) is doing the 1st grade level and Friendly the kindergarten. It is all the same core activities though which makes it super easy for me!

All of our curriculum fits on one snug shelf!

So far it's going alright. Roo has been sick (she had a BAD bladder infection a week ago and the antibiotics have been leaving her feeling really crummy for the last 9 days), and off and then Pip came down with a nasty head cold over the weekend, and the rest of us came down with it on Monday. So it has not been the week I expected to have, at all.  Roo doesn't seem to like school right now. Which surprises me. There are lots of crafts and fun singing activities and read alouds. All things she loves. I am going to muscle through because 1) it adds a ton of structure and intention to our day and
2) Friendly LOOOVES it. I mean she is just eating it up. She loves busy work. She loves trying new things. She loves all the silly songs and activities and Science and HISTORY. So that is rewarding.

I am hopeful that once we get past the sickies Roo will enjoy it more too. I do think I am going to have to tweak my curriculum choices for her a bit- she is not into her hand writing book. That's fine, I can find some thing she enjoys.  She has the misfortune of being the oldest child, I don't know what that is like- but apparently it means that you feel you must do it all perfectly. I am not sure where this idea comes from- I am the QUEEN of "get er done! If it looks a tad weird slap the 'creative' label on it and move on!". I mean when it comes to craftie things and school work. I CAN be a  perfectionist about some things, but then again I am also not going to lose sleep over projects either.
Not my Roo. She wants it to look "just so" and if it doesn't she gets very frustrated and crabby. Ah well, this is a great opportunity to practice "good enough" and doing your best and focusing on the positives.

First Day - we made "Family Trees" for history.

After class sitting on the table? 

Todays class- can you see all the awesome things that we've done this week? Collages and Friendly is VERY proud of being able to write her name. 

Pip likes to work on projects too

As you can see we're slowly starting to get more settled here- the book shelf is filling up!

I am excited about this new season of being "home schoolers"! This time last year I wasn't really sure I wanted to home school Roo this year. I was thinking about being crammed together all. the. time. and the fighting and feeling like well, "getting a break by sending her to school would be really nice." It is so nice being in our new home and having all the space to spread out, the fenced back yard to send the kids outside to play in, and the long front side walk for them to go ride scooters and play with chalk on. I mean we're only a few days in- but I really like the structure it adds. It is nice to have some thing to be intentional about. And it is geared to only take an hour tops- and each activity only takes 10 minutes so we can easily stop whenever we want if we're losing interest or have other things we'd rather do. It's been nice. It's also nice to think of all the fun things we get to do together, the "just being" aspects of our days that we'd totally lose if Roo was in school. Not to mention how much more rush and on some one else' time table we'd be.

So I am happy with our choice for this year and I think that this journey is going to be a lot of fun!

Oh some friends and I are also hoping to start a co-op (a small one) with some friends other friends who are also young home schoolers, which will be a lot of fun! :)