School at Home

The biggest adjustment for Penelope has been the addition of starting up school again.  Right after breakfast we head upstairs to our school room until lunch time.  If our first day back to it had been my first day to homeschool, I would have run away screaming and trying to hide in a closet.  Funny thing is, that is pretty much what Penelope did all day.  She screamed from the moment I sat down in the chair with her in my lap between Trent and Kate until the moment the last book was closed and papers were put away in their bins.  It was pure chaos.  Thankfully, I had fully warned Trent and Kate that they were going to need to get ready for some serious focus the first few days.  They were champs!  Seriously, they got their seat work done, worked on the computer, read aloud, listened to me read to them... all while Penny screamed with crocodile tears running down her face.  I have to admit, I was in a bit of a panic as I considered this as potentially our long term experience each day in the school room.  But I wisely called my cheerleader of a husband, and our school principal, for some consolation and console me he did.  He told me it would get better and that he was praying for me.  

He was sooo right.

It took a few days but Penelope has already begun to understand her "new normal" in the school room.  Between her puzzles, the little people bin of toys, her toy kitchen, and the closet full of building blocks and manipulatives, she is finding her own way around our school routine.  Sometimes the school day looks like a comedy sketch and I feel like I'm on some blooper show as I read aloud from a biography of Abraham Lincoln while raising and lowering said toddler into my lap, then down, into my lap, then down - who needs a workout anyway?

See how studious Kate is while Penny is hard at work on the computer?  I'm a tough task master I tell 'ya!

Penny is very proud of the fact that she can slide onto this chair without any help and loves to put on the headphones, even if they don't play any sound ;)

Trent has his work cut out for him this year.  Fourth grade has meant some adjustments to added responsibility and independence in the classroom but he has taken it all in stride and is doing so well...

It may be chaotic at times but school at home is so much more than I ever thought it would be.  So glad to have the opportunity to teach these cute kids!