First Day of School!!

Well, the day finally arrived.  After a summer of waiting (and almost dreading from me), we finally cracked out the books on August 31st and began our homeschooling.  I bought Avery some new school supplies to begin the year and even had a couple of new activities for Bailey.  Avery was SO excited to begin!  She had been asking me to start school literally every day since our curriculum arrived back in July!  I was excited in a way but also pretty nervous about all of the unknowns.  The girls were excited to show off some of their new supplies. 

 

Avery took to school like a fish to water.  She is such a sponge!  She soaks up everything I teach her and wants to know more!  She is especially great at math and reading.  She is adding numbers 0-20 like a champ and writing them really great, too.  She is writing words well and is reading small words.  In a couple of weeks, we are really jumping into reading and I have no doubt she is going to take off.  She has every step down except fluently reading a book, so I know she’ll fly through this.  We are now on week 7 of school and we really love it.  It only takes us about an hour and a half to do the whole day’s work.  Sometimes we break it up and do some during Bailey’s nap and sometimes we take longer and add other activities in, but it’s great to be able to finish all of the lessons for the day in under 2 hours. 

I found these great little blocks in the dollar section at Target (got 3 different shapes), and Bailey had fun trying to see how many she could fit into a bottle. 

Later she put them in a bowl and even stacked some…

…but eventually we always wind up back to this. :)  Dee-dee is never far away and never out of mind!  When we finish our schoolroom upstairs, Bailey will have more particular activities just for her set up and Avery and I will spend time playing just with her and helping her to do purposeful activities.

I really should be already doing this, but for now, it’s too hard with a whole house to roam through and be distracted by.  I wanted to get Avery really into her school before I focused on Bailey much anyway.  She is happy to bug us for a while, then run amuck in Avery’s room. :)

Anyway, all of these pictures are from the first day of school and I really should be taking more, but things are going GREAT and I feel way less overwhelmed than I did before we began this journey.  It will be so incredible to look back and see where we’ve come from and to enjoy the many memories we will make together spending so much time together and learning together.  I know I will never regret this extra time spent with my girls.  Some days I definitely want a break, but in the end, I know it’s the right choice for us and I am so glad God lead us here.