First Day

Our school year began today! I'll be honest with you, I've put off planning this year til the bitter end. Not sure why....maybe because I haven't slept decently in oh...about 8 months and most days I feel like a walking zombie.  Hmmm....But that's ok. Who needs sleep when you have a cuddly, snuggly baby to keep you up between 2 and 5 am? 

Really, I'm not complaining, I knew what I was getting into; none of my babies were good sleepers. Mentally, I am prepared for this stage, and I know it won't last forever.  But the lack of sleep does make me a bit zonkers at times. So if you see me in the grocery store staring intently at a bag of tater tots or something, you'll know why!

...back to our first day at school.....

We started our day off with our verse of the week: Phillipians 2:3  "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others above yourself."   UM...YEAH, that is our verse of the week for a very good reason. We are working on alot of CHARACTER issues in our home.  It seems to me the heart of most of our sin is selfishness and a 'me first' attitude. I'm really working hard to teach these duckies of mine to be thinking of others before themselves.  Especially each other. 

Wait, you mean I have to be nice to my brother or sister and put them first??
 And of courseI hear--Well, they should be thinking of me first if they want to obey what the Bible says.  Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, cuz that's what you're doing right now, sweet heart?!!!!!!!!!

*sigh*

It's a work in progress.

Then we worked on our Virtue from We Choose Virtues. I Am Attentive. I thought that was a great one to start with since we are starting school.  The kids loved the flashcard and the cute picture on the front.  I can tell these are going to be a hit in our home! 

Meet the students:



This year, we have a first grader--Sparkle--She is full of life and spunk! She's my little Sparkle!  Super excited and full of energy . After a great year doing MFW Kindergarten and some Abeka phonics, she is already reading  in her first grade readers.  



Next up is our third grader--Hulk--All BOY all the time. He is my little man around the house.  Funny, bright and athlete extraordinair in his own right.



And then is our oldest--Sunny--The artist, the dreamer, she's full of creativity and always has an idea to share.  She's going into fifth grade officially but we're still polishing up some skills we began working on last year. 



Finally, the newest member of our nest--Baby Smiley--ok, that  nickname might change.  She's just hanging out with us for the fun of it. As she gets a little older, I'll have to get some tot school activities for her, but for now, I'm enjoying her baby days while they last. 





Each of the  kids got to fill in their own 'Back to School' booklet I bought on currclick.com. .  In it they wrote what kind of subjects they liked and about their families and some words to describe themselves.  They each did a couple of subjects. Sparkle really wanted to dive into her phonics book and Superman did his first math lesson.  Sunny worked on both math and reading comp.  I decided to let them pick their subjects for the first few days and since we're starting on a Wednesday, that will work out just dandy. Next week, we'll add more in to make a smooth transition into school. 

All in all, it was a smooth easy day. Juggling three different grades is going to be tricky--no doubt about it.  I'll post more about our core subjects in my next post.  But it's going to be a fun year together. 

So how about you? What's on your agenda for this new school year?