First Day of School!

Today was our first day of school. I can NOT believe I have a 4th grader, a 3rd grader, AND.....a Kindergartner!! Michael asked me last night where the past 10 years have gone. My answer? We blinked. We decided then and there we were done with blinking! :) In all seriousness, our first day went really well. We went out for breakfast with Michael before he headed to work this morning. After breakfast, we went through the Starbucks drive-thru for me, dropped some books off at the library, and headed home for chores. They must have been at least a little bit excited for school, because they were done with their chores in record time! As I've said before, we are spending the year doing Exploring Countries and Cultures. We're all super excited to learn more about people groups, habitats, and cultures this year. The Olympics have been a fabulous start to that! One of the things they had to do today was apply for their passports. They filled out an application and a 'check' to pay for it, and the passports will arrive in a couple of weeks. Here are their passport pictures:

A year ago, I had read a post on a message board about a shower curtain at Target that was a map of the world. Knowing we had this year of geography coming in the not too distant future, I went and got one. It's been sitting on my shelf for a YEAR waiting for this day! After their geography pretest (boy, do we have a lot to learn this year!!), we spread the shower curtain out on the floor and took turns going from country to country. I think it will be a great hands-on addition to our studies this year.

This is the first year I'm balancing curriculum for all 3 kids and I have been a little nervous about it. Caleb, however, did great today. His kindergarten work was just the right amount of time for a boy on the go. Teaching a boy is definitely WAAAAAAAY different than teaching girls!! :) I think this will be a great year for everyone though. I'm excited to see all the things we get to learn and do together!