Welcome Back... First day Anxiety

After a long summer, it was back to the classroom today. I decided to keep both kids on the same curriculum this year so I guess that means both kids are doing 1st grade this year. Garrett should be considered 2nd grade but last year he refused to do any reading or writing so I felt it was in his best interest to start him over in 1st. Looking at how he was today, it seemed to be the right decision as today he was very eager to do his lessons where last year I couldn't get him to sit down for anything. I actually considered getting medication for him to help calm him down.. now I'm very glad I went with my gut instinct and just let him set his pace. The difference between last year and today was like night and day.

Our curriculum this year is consisting of Daily Drills and copy work, reading lessons from "Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Easy Lessons" to start and then we will add to it once we are complete with it, Story of the World volume 1 (which we decided to start from the beginning since we didn't get very far through it last year), and  MCP Mathematics Level A. We're starting the year with Scott Foresman's 1st Grade Science (the Penguin book) but it looks as if we are going to fly though this book in a matter of weeks as the lessons are very simplistic and the kids are well what it teaches, but there are a few topics the kids could learn from. Once we finish with the science book, we will be doing Apologia's Zoology 1.  We will also be doing Bible lessons (with a primary focus on the life of Jesus), unit studies regarding the holidays  as well as incorporating Little Passports USA throughout the year.

I was really apprehensive today about starting our lessons. Last year, as mentioned, Garrett couldn't sit down for anything. It was very frustrating to sit and try to teach them with him getting up every minute. Today was so wonderful. Garrett sat through all of our lessons, wrote everything request of him and actually paid attention. At first, he was more interested in what was in his pencil box and I was thinking we would be repeating our frustration from last year but he quickly settled down. His writing is well behind what Asheligh's is but I have a feeling he is going to catch up quickly. Just the improvement between him writing his name on the first handout of the day and the last was amazing.  I have no doubt that he will be up to par very quickly. Ashleigh was more of a handful today but that's just her. I think she was pretty excited about actually starting school again and that came out in her behavior.

All in all, we had a great first day here at home and if the rest of the year can go even half as smooth as today went, I think it will be a great year.