First week of almost-school

The first week of school was filled with surprises, disappointment and three very happy children.

My plan last year was to do school in the dining room, and then over the summer prepare a room of learning fun and magic (or just learning) over the summer to accommodate what turns out to be a lot of homeschooling materials.

Well the summer came, and with that an overwhelming amount of work, and responsibilities, and pregnancy sickness. That coupled with exhaustion, put ever bit of my school room plans on the back burner.

Two weeks before the start of school, i am off my day care duties and immediately into travel plans. We go visit family and friends for about 10 days,and come back earlier than originally planned, in the hopes of getting SOMETHING ANYTHING done... well a couple of bald tires and 2,446 miles of gas later, we are broke beyond broke.

So now i have a room to clear out and clean up from step sons mess, then fill up with learning goodies and storage furniture, and paint nice colors... and i have four days and no moneys to work with.

Well, i cleared out the room, found some spare stuff from around the house to use as desks and storage, made a very short trip to ikea, with what little change we could scrape up for a cubby unit, and the room is now "usable"

Not to mention my plans for a first grade curriculum is out of the question...

First day of school, i made some "all about me books" they weren't amazing, but i couldn't find any free printable books with what i wanted, so i drew up about 16 half pages... it doesn't look like to much, but it kept my little ones engaged and busy for almost 2 hours! (of course they are both really anal about using every single color in the color box on every picture possible)

here it is for your FREE downloading pleasure... unless you want to just make your own ;)

All About Me Book

I also put together some review stuff from last years curriculum. For an added project we made salt dough hand prints.  Then i took some school pictures of my little learners

The kids were over joyed, they loved it all... they loved having a work book about them, and having review sheets, they loved the craft project that last about 4 days due to baking and painting and drying. I think they were soaking up the one on one mommy time, that has so been neglected of them all summer long.

Wednesday i gave an art lesson, at the library to the older kids in our home school group, and then while we were there picked up some food chain books to start our science block! They were really into learning about what animals eat and how environments work, we have read two of the books already and have classified animal pictures by food preference (carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore) and next week i think we will make our own food web.

So i am struggling to be happy with what i have, and my children are ecstatic to have what they have. We cant all be rich i suppose, i will just work around the pile of stuff i call a home school room until i can piece together a more suitable learning atmosphere.

I am trying to stay positive. This summer was fun and exciting for my kids as well as the day care kids, and the trip home was necessary we haven't made it back in two years, and celebrating my best friends marriage was so awesome... but all MY plans and hobbies and expectations were pushed aside... for the good of the family, i guess that is another part of being a mommy i just have to accept.