Our GREAT First week of the 2012/13 School Year

This week we officially started back to school.

Full load.

Fully schedule.

The whole shebang!

I didn't start with a light load or ease into it because frankly we have missed school so much that I truly didn't see the point. So here we are. Lessons and units completed and checked off. Plans written out and smiles on all of our faces. This week has been great! I pray the momentum stays the year through and not just the "newness" of the year and it fizzles out.

This week I did learn though that the beginning Kindergarten lessons for my little man are way too easy for him and were completed way too quick. So I am now on the task of finding lots of supplements for him to make his days more meatier and chalked full of fun and more learning. He was very bored this week. He wasn't a big fan of reading through our material. He begged for more worksheets though. He loved worksheets. Each day he would proudly ask to hang it up for Daddy to see. He also celebrated his 5th birthday midweek. While time schedule was off we still completed the days work. It was great! Even our littlest guy (3yr old) took part in phonics sounds and repeat after me parts. It was another glorious moment of the soul.

Here are some pics of our fun this week!! (I really hope that I can stick to use the camera on either my phone or regular camera to keep tracking our days. I always slack on it and kick myself for it. Here's to hoping for change.)

I am like the lamest parent ever too by the way. I haven't gotten first day of school pictures yet. This is all I have. Our immediate surroundings are less than inspiring so I have decided to dress them in the same clothes tomorrow and go to a nicer location and take pictures then.

It still counts... kind of?

Right?

Hard at work...

Monday we scored an awesome calendar set up for $5 (Thank you Mardel) and some cute cups for the kids for $0.25/each. Owls are huge around here.

See... ;) 

We drew during reading class and learned some awesome new vocabulary words...  

For Geology chapter 1 talked about the layers of the earth. Thanks to Pinterest (linked to actual post) we tried our hand at the play-dough layers model. Our play-dough... no joke... was cheap, and so didn't cut as clean or mold as well as we had hoped. The kids still had fun though. We may be making this one again with better play-dough just because later.

We celebrated a special day...

And I wrapped up the week with inspiration from one of best friends back home. They are starting their year next month and she set up a spreadsheet for yearly lesson planning based on weeks. I loved her layout and my OCD begged to join in on the fun. So I too started making up our yearly lesson plan layout. I {heart} an organized school year. 

Oh yes, and LOTS of Olympics have been watched and rooted for as well!! This is my daughter back during the Parade of Athletes going through her Countries Flag book. She located the flags and countries. She literally was giddy to do it A-Z. It was an awesome moment!

{Sorry for the poor cellphone pics... only camera I have that has a wider lens. 50mm is just a little too close sometimes. *wink*}


That wraps up our week. How was yours? Did you start back to school too? How was it? I'd love to know!!

Here is to a great new school year!!