GO!! Our first day of school

Well, we were "supposed" to wait until June 1st to officially start Kindergarten, but we didn't. After reading some posts on the Sonlight forums, I decided that we should gradually start school. First, we would start our Sonlight core; then, add in math; and finally, Spell to Write and Read. It didn't work exactly like that. We started the first day of our core on Friday. D-Man started learning his memory verse and we talked about our character trait of the week: attentiveness. Instead of continuing on with our core reading, D-Man begged to start his math workbook. I made him stop math after 3 lessons since we hadn't had breakfast yet. I wasn't suprised that he did 3 lessons and wanted to do more. After breakfast, we read our whole day's worth of Sonlight and a little more. Shawn was a little disappointed that we hadn't saved any school reading for bedtime. Overall, it was a GREAT first day.

One thing I figured out was that one day of core reading just isn't enough for us. So, I decided that we would just go through each of our "assignments" at our own pace and possibly do the entire thing twice this year. Basically, I need to be flexible.

Preschool Graduation

We had a fabulous year at our church's preschool this year. D-Man enjoyed his special time out of the house for 5 hrs/day, 3 days/week. He made some close friends, gained some independence, and took part in some fun activities. As excited as I am to start homeschooling him, I am sad that our year of preschool is over. As usual, the director, Susan, planned a wonderful graduation to end the year. All of the pre-K students (the two classes of 4/5 year olds that will go on to Kindergarten next year) took part in the special ceremony. One of the highlights was asking each child what they wanted to be when they grew up. D-Man wanted to "work on computers with his Daddy." There were some ballerinas, a race car drvier, and a few doctors. Shawn's favorite was the cute little girl who wants to be Batman.

Miss Susie, the art teacher, made profile cutouts for each child. They had them posted around the chapel without names, but we knew immediately which one was D-Man. This will be framed and put in his room.

D-Man with his teachers, Miss Maria and Miss Deloris. I couldn't have asked for a better set of teachers for Daniel's class.

The whole class. There were 12 girls and 4 boys. Although, the boys and girls played well together, it seemed like the boys really bonded over the year. The really tall boy next to D-Man is his best friend in the class.

Ready, Get Set...

We're all ready for the year. I have everything I need. Here's a picture of all of our materials. This is only the stuff for D-Man's kindergarten. It doesn't include the things that I have for C-Monster. C-Monster just has some storybooks that are on his level and some workbooks just to make him feel included if he wants. For D-Man, we have math, math manipulatives, language arts, phonogram games, Bob books (he's already read through these, but we'll go through them again), Fun Tales (another set of beginner readers), and Sonlight P4/5 "Exploring God's World." I'm definitely relieved that I'm finished making decisions about curriculum and it is all here waiting for us to get started. Looking at all of our materials on the table makes me very excited for the coming year.