Back to School

Well, we're 2 days into Kindergarten and so far it's going OK.

Monday was good. Roo woke up singing and dancing, all excited for Kindergarten!! It took a little longer than planned for him to get dressed and do his morning chores, so we started a little later than I wanted to, but new routines take time. He did really good starting out, but about 20 minutes into the video he got bored, so we had to make room for several breaks throughout the day and that helped. Aside from that, he did very well participating and answering and such.

He did a special project today, which we'll repeat at the end of the year.


Today, wasn't as good. He was testing the boundaries today for sure. He didn't stand when instructed, wouldn't sit still in his seat, wouldn't sing or recite when instructed, etc. I did notice eventually, that he was only doing this when he knew I was watching him. If I wasn't paying attention to him (as far as he could tell ;)), he began participating, so I am hoping if I keep busy during the videos, that will help. The material seems to be boring him, though. Hopefully it will pick up soon!

I'll admit, I was discouraged today. I know it's normal to test out the boundaries with any new routine or activity, but it was disheartening to have to be on him all day today. It's only the SECOND day! I wasn't expecting this until later.

(Oh, but this evening he ran over to his desk and said "I can't wait for Kindergarten tomorrow! I love Kindergarten!" and then again at bedtime during prayer he thanked God for his Kindergarten and Mrs. Bere. :) (So cute). So I don't know if he loves it or hates it or what. Crazy kid. lol.

I hope tomorrow goes great!!

Summer is Almost Over!

There's only one more week of summer, and we're trying to enjoy every minute of it! This past week has been busy, but lots of fun. Gabriel and Cohen had a sleepover at YahYah and Poppy's, and had a great time playing together (mostly lol). Friday was the annual HIB Summer BBQ.  Roo helped me make a cake to take, and we had a blast! Good fellowship with good peoples!

I'm excited for school to start!

It's getting closer!

I got the videos in the other day and I finally had some time to sit down and watch the first two days' lessons, and I am so excited! It was a lot more interactive than I thought it would be and the teacher, Mrs. Bere (who is just absolutely precious, btw) has them up and down from their seats quite a bit which will be very helpful for my busy-body-boy :) I'm also considering having him sit on an exercise ball instead of a chair so he can keep himself in motion while he watches, but I'm not sure about that yet.

I'm also quite at ease about planning now as, I realized after seeing the videos, I will not have much planning to do at all. There are activities built into the lessons and she walks through them, so I will basically just be on standby in case he needs help. I'm sure this is probably a good thing, but I'm a little bummed that I won't be very involved.. on the other hand, that does give me time to do the household chores while He's doing his lessons so that we can spend time doing fun things together afterwards!

So, since I have practically zero planning to do curriculum-wise, I've decided to put all of my energy into our dining room classroom. It's such a small space and we have almost no storage in this little apartment, so it's super hard to get organized and keep organized! Hopefully, we'll do better this year at keeping it tidy. I'm going to work on that in these next few days!

I may post some pics when it's all done!
-Jess