First Day of School

Today was our first official day of school. Natalie was beyond excited about her first day of Kindergarten. Her complaint at the end of the day was that we didn’t do school all day long. I reminded her that even kids that left for school had recess, lunch break and ended at 3pm. That made her feel a little bit better, that she wasn’t being jipped out of all of her learning possibilities.

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We started the day with our tradition of pancakes in the shape of their year- a big “K” for Natalie and a “2” for Noah. They got dressed in the cute outfits that they, ahem I, had picked, and we took pictures by the majestic pine trees outside the home we are staying in (with obligatory signs to show their grade). When we trooped inside, I explained the schedule we would try to repeat no matter where in the world we happened to be. It seems like a lot, but ended up being much simpler than I thought. 

Here’s my plan:

Do the morning routine: Bed, clothes, hair, Bible and Prayer. 

At Breakfast: Display a picture of a famous artwork by the artist we are studying on the table for the kids to look at while they eat, kind of like the half-glazed stare at a box of cereal, but more worthwhile. Also, a verse or piece of memory work displayed with the same purpose. While they eat and stare, I’ll have the song of a composer we are studying playing in the background. Pretty easy so far- just eat breakfast while staring and listening. 

After cleaning up, they will copy the displayed verse or memory work to practice handwriting and grammar, which will also help them memorize it.

We will then read a picture book that has something to do with what we are learning (science, history, geography, math, art, music, etc.). Today we read about birds because the place we are staying at is pretty much a bird sanctuary. Then we found each bird out the window and Natalie spontaneously made her own bird book with drawings and trees. Yeah, she rocked her first day at kindergarten. 

Math will follow with the most structure of any area- we use a curriculum called Right Start and though it is heavy on teacher instruction, it does a great job of building number fluency.

If we find ourselves to be at a place with a piano, I will have the kids learn and practice, but we won’t have one in Europe, so I’ll probably wait. 

All of this was done by 9:30am, so I told them to go outside and play. Which is also why Natalie was disappointed that there wasn’t more. I assured her there would be more after lunch. The kids explored the forested area, caught frogs, helped pick beans from the garden and watched a monarch hatch from a chrysalis, then let it go a few hours later. (I call that “sneaky school”, when the kids are learning more than I could ever instruct, but they don’t even know it!)

Papa joined us for a fresh garden lunch, then helped listen to reading. Each child took 10 minutes to practice reading out loud, then I read a chapter book out loud to them. It was good for me to assess just how well Noah could read, as well as make him slow down and not skip words. Natalie was also doing much better than I thought she could, and it was fun to hear her put together all the sounds to read simple word books. 

We ended our time with writing- Noah chose to start a story about our time at one family’s house this summer, with hopes to publish it on this blog. Natalie wrote a pretty card for Nana and Papa and decorated it. 

Then I laid on the couch and they went out to play. First day, done.