First Day!

It's hard to believe it's that time already - back to school!

I have been ready for several weeks and eagerly anticipating the start of a new year of homeschooling these kiddos.  I'm not going to lie - we had a rough first day today!  After very little sleep I had a headache and was not feeling up to the challenge.  But my goals this year are to be consistent, to do 4 days a week, to stick to our (loose) schedule and to remember that some days are awesome while other days are just survived!  Let's put today in the "survived" category and move on, shall we? :)

Matthew is officially a Kindergartener this year!  It was so exciting to see how much he learned last year and I am looking forward to the year ahead with him.  I hope he will continue to develop a love for reading, grow in his math skills, and discover a real joy for learning.

My sweet, crazy Nathan will be officially starting Preschool at home this year!  He is not quite ready for reading yet so we will be spending time learning letter sounds and reading, reading, reading to keep up his love for books!  He is starting the same math curriculum that Matthew uses and we will work our way slowly through the first book this year.  He is so excited to be a big boy who has his own books!  He is learning to write and is such a diligent, hardworking little guy!

Oh, Hannah!  This face just sums up my bubbly little girl!  She is so super excited about school starting again.  She will have some little activities to work on - color sorting, basic counting, shapes, learning letters, but mostly her job will be to play and to learn to love reading like her brothers!  She has started bringing me books and now will sit and listen - this feels like such a victory!  My little firecracker does make the days a little more interesting (which is a nicer word than challenging) but I would not change her for anything!

I'm so glad I get the chance to teach them!  And I'm so glad that it's nap time for Hannah and that the boys are playing on the Wii for a little while :)  Ah, sweet silence...