...go!

Our first day was fabulous! Our weather was not. Not so bad that we couldn't get in our morning walk, but bad enough that the obligatory first-day-of-school photo came out too blurry to post a larger version of on the blog. But that was the only bummer of the day, otherwise all ran smoothly!

(In case you're wondering, those are our 3 smooth collies, from L to R they are Yule, Joy, and Cheer. No, I did not purposely wind up with a winter holiday theme when naming them, it just sort of happened, as do most things in my life.)

The kids loved our Harvest Adventure Circle (details to come, I promise), enjoyed the walk (Zoo Boy declared that morning walks are more fun when they are part of "school work", despite it being pretty much the same morning walk we always take), and sat in mesmerized awe at the curriculum story (like good little Enki first graders should do). They had a bit of trouble sinking into play afterwards, but I think that was in a large part due to having to play indoors, as there were torrential buckets pouring down outdoors at that point. They were VERY excited to receive their school supplies (which wound up happening over the course of the day rather than in a formal presentation -- I just found moments during the day where it made sense to present them with various items). In this photo they are checking out their new crayon cases and crayons.

One of their favorite parts of the day was "practice time". The sample Enki First Grade schedule has practice time occurring at the end of Rest, but since our Rest is a little funky this year (more details on that at some point as well), I really don't have the time or space to put it there. However, we consistently have a good chunk of time before dinner every evenings, so I thought that would be the best place to set aside time for practicing skills. Initial practice consists of exploring Math materials and writing their names. However, for my little bookworms who have already been reading for awhile, I've decided that it makes sense to incorporate reading practice right off the bat. They agreed. I selected a simple, repetitious board book for Zoo Boy (Sheep in a Jeep, by Nancy Shaw), and a Level 2 reader for J (Frog and Toad Together, by Arnold Lobel). J is mostly practicing self-control -- I told him to just read one chapter per day. Book hound that he is, he would have happily devoured the entire book -- plus the next 5 that I have picked out for him -- in one sitting. Zoo Boy reads to me (or The Map Man, or both), and J reads to Zoo Boy. This way our "practice time" also doubles as a "settling in" time before dinner. This time slot is also where the boys will get their Recorder Lessons this winter.

Today's math practice was origami, dictated by J's request (he still remembers that big stack of origami paper that came with our school supplies!). I gave them a book with some simple folding projects, a small stack of paper, and a time limit (otherwise they would have sat there for hours until every last piece of paper was transformed into an animal, possibly several times if they ran out of paper before completing all the projects in the book). At dinner time, the book and paper was removed and put away for another day's practice time.

This evening it was back to a formal Family Story Time. For our first week we're reading Raccoons and Ripe Corn, by Jim Arnosky; The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree, by Gail Gibbons; and The Story of the Wind Children, by Sibylle von Olfers. And of course another chapter from the ever-popular The Trumpet of the Swan, by E.B.White, which my work schedule had forced us to take a week's break from.

So I'm chalking today up as a success, and have no reason to think that tomorrow won't be just as great!