The ABC’s of Our First Week |

The first week of our school year is officially in the books. And, may I pause here and shout for joy? I have to say, I didn’t really think I’d make it! At least, not with my sanity in tact.

Let’s take it alphabetical order, shall we?

(Don’t worry, we won’t do all 26.)

C is for “Change”. This would be ~~too~~ many things. The change to Notgrass for history, Bible and literature seems to be going okay, but it’s been an adjustment. Easy Grammar, which I’ve used in the past, has been a good change. The Institute for Excellence in Writing is taking some getting used to, but I think it will be great once we find a rhythm. We’re also making some math changes for some of the kids…I hope that turns out to be the right thing! And Lauren is really enjoying the switch from private trumpet lessons to taking a band class.

E is for “Emotional”. That would be me, the mom. I can’t confirm it medically, but I think I suffered from “I’m in my twelfth year of homeschooling and I have a Junior, a Kindergartener and everything in between” syndrome. (It probably has a really long, un-pronounceable medical name.) {But what could be longer than what I just typed? Oh well. Don’t bother me with details.} My symptoms were insomnia, crying easily, the feeling of suffocating and loss of appetite. The loss of appetite was a good thing. Everything else I could have lived without.

F is for “Frown”. This was the expression on most of our faces last week. We all had different reasons for it, of course, and sometimes the frown was replaced by a look of confusion. (That mostly happened to me.)

K is for “Kindergarten”. Matthew enjoyed doing his first week of K5! He greeted us each morning for the first three days of school with this:

His enthusiasm was contagious…and boy! Did we need it!

If he hadn’t been so adorable in every single thing that he did, the rest of us would have truly languished.

O is for “Overwhelmed”. Again, this would be me. I consulted my schedule, then my lesson plan, then back to my schedule, then the clock, gasped for air, and collapsed. Okay, I didn’t collapse, but only because no one would have noticed and I was worried about getting stepped on.

S is for “Sick”. That would be Lauren, Mitchell, Matthew, Leslie, and Laci – in that order. We somehow caught a lovely summer cold which left poor Matthew sneezing in between numbers. He counted to five – then sneezed and sneezed and sneezed. We started over, got to five again, same thing happened. It took us three times to get through it, but we made it to ten (and beyond). Poor guy sniffed and sniffed, but worked on in spite of it.

T is for “Try”. They all tried, and even succeeded! They gave it their best, in spite of the changes, their emotional and overwhelmed mother, and their own sickness. Each one excelled in the areas they disliked the most: Leslie forged ahead in grammar and science; Laci did her best at math and penmanship; Lauren worked hard at composition and history; and Mitch did a great job doing his own science experiments!