I'm a Home Educator!

Today was the first day of our family home education! I'm educating Jacob (13), Chad (11), and Gregory (almost 9). It was a bit of a crazy day trying to set up the routine, which was interupted by a Dr. appointment for me and lots of phone calls. Also, not all of the curriculum that I have ordered has arrived, so I had to swing it on the math, and skipped the language arts for the older boys. Here's how our day went: The kids were so excited, they woke up early (6:45) and started the "Rise and Shine" routine. (Make beds, Eat Breakfast, Get dressed, brush teeth, Do chores and family prayer). Then we walked Elijah (5) to kindergarten. After leaving him in his classroom, we went for a 9 minute jog/walk together. This was followed by sit-ups, push-ups and chin-ups. We hope to track our improvement over the next month (doing PE and Physical Fitness merit badge at same time). The we started what I call the Smart Start routine. Prayer, Pledge of Allegience, Announcements, and Book of Mormon studies. This was supposed to be followed by academics, but I had to get ready for the Dr. apt, so I assigned them a "life skill" task (more chores) and then gave them permission to do free reading until I got back. All went well at my annual exam, though I was a bit nervous because I had the Dr. remove my IUD. After much prayer and discussion and a fast or two, Stuart and I have decided that it's time to allow a 7th child to join our crew, so today I opened the way for that possiblity. On the way home I stopped by the store and got some more school supplies that I needed and some prenatal vitamins that I'm going to start taking (just in case it happens sooner than later). When I returned home we had lunch, then started in on some math. Since the textbooks weren't in, I had everyone do brainpop.com for math for a half and hour, followed by a dictation exercise. We were interupted by a phone call from our new piano teacher, then it was time to go pick up Eli from school . We walked in the 1o4+ weather and returned happy and ready to go to Wal-mart to get a fish tank for our Science lab. We are going to test the how Thermal pollution affects living organisms (goldfish). (Another merit badge project-boy scouts will be used a lot in our home school). We set up the lab and will get the fish tomorrow. Then we all rested and I cleaned a bit and started dinner. I then had Greg do some grammar work out of his new textbook and we took a swim before Stuart got home from work. It was overall, a pretty good day. We got a lot done, though I lost my temper with the teasing and complaining that went on. Hopefully we will all do better and improve on that part. Day 1 down, 179 to go!