Loving School!

I just needed to gush about how great school is going for us!! We are almost finished with week one and we are having a really good time! I love, love, LOVE our curriculum! It is really keeping me focused without much effort on what Elijah needs to learn each day. I am finding cute little games to do mixed in with our regular lessons. Today a PE activity was thrown in. It was called "Hop the Brook". You use sidewalk chalk and draw a couple of parallel lines for your child to hop over and then you say "On no! It rained and our brook got wider" then draw a 3rd line so there is a bigger distance to hop. Then just keep going until your child can no longer make it over the lines of the brook. When they land in the "water" then you say, "Oh no! your feet got wet!" and the game is over. Elijah hopped 4 feet and 8 inches today. We have done the long jump before but this was just a cute way to do it, and Elijah had a lot of fun with it! Yesterday our cute activity that was thrown in involved a singing poem and had us walking all over the house singing this poem and adding things to it and acting them out. It was fun! Even Daniel liked it!

Our first day back in school was long but each day following has gotten progressively shorter as we get used to being back in school and in the routine. I am finding I don't have to be completely hands on with Elijah as he is starting to get more independent in his schooling which is really nice! I was a little concerned and apprehensive when I got all the books that Calvert uses and started making my way through the first lesson plans. It felt a little overwhelming at first. It just seemed like a lot, and is so structured I was afraid we would miss having some freedom with our schedule but now that we are into it I am finding it pretty simple to use. We do have freedom to change things around to suit us some. For example they start the day with math each day but that doesn't work too good for us so we switched it so math is last. Math is Elijah's easiest subject and reading is his toughest so it works better for us to start the day with reading. Also yesterday I had a terrible headache all day and wasn't much use for teaching so we didn't get much done in our school day. We were able to easily catch up today and still finished on time! So that gives me hope for when we have field trips, and things just happen that interfere with the schedule that we will not get way behind and feel stressed.

I am most excited that Elijah is really starting to pick up on the reading more. He is doing so much better than he was at the end of last year and this is only day 4! I'm sure he is doing better partly because he is older and more ready for it, but a lot of the progress has to be due to the new reading program we are using through our Calvert curriculum. It is just so comprehensive and just the perfect level for Elijah. I really prayed about choosing a curriculum, and I am rejoicing to see God's faithfulness in providing us with just the right curriculum choice for us. I am just sooooo happy and excited about what this school year holds for us!!

Oh yeah I also have a call in to get Elijah signed up for boys gymnastics. He will be able to do it Mondays before choir practice and he already has a couple of friends signed up for it to do it with. The charter school will pay for it! Elijah watched gymnastics on TV a couple of weeks ago and said he wanted to do it, so this should be fun for him!