I’m finally getting to my “first day of (home) school” post!
Because we started on labor day, we had the pleasant experience of having Steve home for our first official day of the school year. He offered to run to our local co-op to pick us up breakfast and I agreed. We had gluten-free peach muffins, coconut tapioca pudding and herbal tea. Everything tasted wonderful, but I had a belly ache for the rest of the day, which I suppose is my own fault for taking the easy way out, even when I know the high likely-hood of being exposed to an allergen. (bleh)
The boys were so excited! They had trouble falling asleep the night before and there was lots of jumping up and down and yelling “Yay!!”
Breakfast was followed up, as it always is (alright, as I aspire to always have it be!), by 20 minutes of chore time, tidying up our space and preparing it for the day.
Steve joined us for our nature walk after chore time. We brought pails to begin gathering acorns for making acorn muffins at a later date. We had a lovely time searching under the trees. Poor Galen was feeling fussy and restless (molars can be so bothersome sometimes). But goodness, he looked cute picking up random things and putting them into his little pail!
By the time we came back home, B the Builder had arrived and Steve went off to work with him. I stopped by the kitchen to start some chickpeas roasting and then headed up to the house to start our day.
We began with the yoga story Jungle Adventure from the book “Fly Like a Butterfly: Yoga for Children”, mostly because I hadn’t gotten around to writing my circle yet! We’ve continued with the yoga over the last couple of weeks and I see a lot of value in doing this with them right now. However, I don’t want it to be at the expensive of circle time, which I also believe to be valuable. I’m still refining this. I think in the end we might end up doing yoga a couple of days a week at a different time, separate from our morning circle.
By the end of yoga, Galen was beside himself and I was forced to put him down for a nap an hour early. When I came back down, I felt a snack was in order. I fixed us each a bowl of shredded cabbage with herb roasted chickpeas, avocado and roasted red pepper dressing, as well as a green smoothie (I think it may have been cantaloupe and wood sorrel, but I don’t really remember). I put Galen’s aside for when he awoke.
Then down to business. I started Iain off with a form drawing. After presenting the form and supervising him while he traced it with his finger, I left him to practice drawing it until he felt he had mastered it well enough to draw it in him main lesson book.
While Iain practiced, I told Elijah his own little story. Very short and sweet it was. Inspired by the mother mouse we found nursing her young in our tool storage bin, I wrote him a little sing-songy poem/story in three verses. Each day I told a bit of the story and wrote it into his own little main lesson book for him and then he would add a new element to the page. This first day he drew a hollow tree and cut out construction paper leaves to line a nest. He’s so very meticulous about these things! Each leaf was shaped just as an oak or a maple should be, and everything was place ‘just so’ to form a perfectly round little nest.
While Elijah worked on his project, I went back to Iain and started his main lesson work for the day. As I am typing this out, it all seems very scattered and confusing, but it really had a lovely flow to it. Each child was working on his own project, at his own level and I was just able to step in where needed to direct them. It’s really a beautiful thing.
Anyhow, for Iain’s first main lesson block we are working with Aesop’s Fables. For our first day, I chose to tell the ‘Lion and the Mouse’. I had my own drawing up on the chalk board. I told the story and them he drew his own version in his main lesson book. The following day he wrote out a summery of the story.
After their main lesson work, I sent the big boys outside to play, while I fed and changed the little sleepy head who had decided to join us again. Then we headed outside as well, me with my knitting and the wee one in the sandbox. In between knitting a round here and there, I pushed children on swings, watching various ‘tricks’ on the trampoline and had the hilarious experience of watching Galen discover caterpillars! He couldn’t stop giggling as he watched one crawl up his bare arm. Then he picked one up and put it on his head! He’s a little comedian already, that one is…
I had planned on bringing everyone back inside for a story, but it was so beautiful outside that we decided to bring the book and a quilt out with us. We cuddled up on the quilt under the trees and read several chapters of “Little House on Rocky Ridge” (one of the sequels to the “Little House” books written be Laura Ingalls Wilder. These last two were written by a different author based on journal entrys and the like).
When the last wall went up on the second floor, we let the children go up for the first time. They stood in their bedroom and looked out the “windows” and were just delighted with the whole thing.
For lunch we had baked yams with ghee, cinnamon and cloves. It made the whole house smell wonderful. In fact, the house continued to carry that pleasant spicy smell from many days after. I suspect, just maybe, that had something to do with Galen dumping the entire container of cinnamon on the floor….
After lunch the boys went out to play for a bit longer and then we made little felt mice with finger knitted yarn tails. A certain little gray mouse scampered away before he had a chance to be photographed, which is rather a shame since he was particularly cute.
Steve and B the Builder kicked off from work early. Iain and Elijah helped Steve to build a fire, while I spent some time alone with Galen. We mostly cuddled and looked at “Autumn” by Gerda Muller, which was his own little “first day of school” gift. Then we all roasted sausages over the fire pit for dinner, as a little celebration to kick off the start of another school year!
Can you tell I’m really excited about this??
