First Day of School Success

Aside from the fact that Jaylyn, Adley and I all have a nasty stomach bug, we had a wonderful first day of school!  I’m grateful that Jaylyn did not have to miss her whole first week of school because of a virus and could conveniently begin at home!  :-)  She was all hyper before bed, ready to start school.  She woke up cheering!  She was ready to go!  I was hoping that I could live up to her first day hopes.  Adley was also ready to participate, so I have been preparing for some “preschool” activities for her to complete when she is home. 

First up – the requested “muffin tin” breakfast and their assigned “morning duties”.  They each have a set of cards to remind them of what needs to be done before we begin our other activities for the day.  This is the first time that Adley has her own set of cards for her morning duties.  She is old enough now and is very eager to complete them. 

Secondly – I am trying a tweaked version of the “workbox” system (for those of you that even know what that is).  Basically they each have a binder with pages of activities and school subjects for the day.  I have marked the activities in their binder that is planned for that day.  They can see what will happen and can keep track of what activities are completed by moving designated “cards”.  The activities that can fit in their binder are there ready for them to pull out.  This will hopefully lead to some independent learning and teaching them how to organize their own time and assignments.  We will see if this system is beneficial, or if it is just more work for me.  :-)  So, they began flipping through their binders to see what activities awaited them.  They did a great job completing their tasks and they were both very excited when they were able to mark that all tasks were completed.  Woohoo!  So far, it is a success, but I can already see the need for a little more tweaking.  Just a few of the activities for the first day included: shaving cream squishing, scavenger hunt phonics fun, trip to the library, decorating pages for their binder covers, gymnastics activities at home on their mat, and even chores. 

Thirdly – A sigh of relief as Jaylyn goes to bed cheering and excited for the next day of school.  I am happy to say it was definitely a success.  And, I will also add since I am typing this after completing our second day, that it was also a success.  The favorite activity of today was finger painting with pudding.  Yum!  And now, I am even typing again on the third day.  A lot of time today outside enjoying the nice weather – finally!  We even read about Arabian horses out there as Jaylyn pretended that our fence gate was her pet horse gate.  :-) 

This is from the night before school.  We were playing with foam letters and numbers.  TJ put a 6 on Leighton’s arm and she loved it.  She FOUND the 9 and brought it to him.  :-)  She knew just which numbers to pick up and fit on her arm and she did not want to give them away.   Have you ever had this kind of fun with numbers??? Muffin Tin Breakfast – Who would have thought that normal breakfast food in a muffin tin could be THAT exciting?  You can see that one of them was a little farther along in her morning duties than the other.  :-)

Excited for first grade!

Still excited!

Labeling oceans and continents 

What should I do next??? 

Pudding paint ready! 

It is fun to lick!    

You can lick it?????  Let me try that!  

You can drink it!

Then there is the dip!

And then there is the art of smearing it all over your face!

Ta da!

Can you tell whose art page is who’s? :-)