Today we started back to school around here. We have had a good two and a half months off, and the kids were very excited to start back. It's nice to be able to start a little earlier since we take a vacation in September, and also to enjoy more days off when the weather is cooler.

I always get school supplies for the kids and set them up the night before. They get so excited about this! It's really cute. They each got crayons, colored pencils, markers, pencils, new notebooks, folders, and pencil holders.

This is the school table the night before, when everything is very neat and organized.

I set up our kitchen table all fun and back to school like for the morning. It's fun to me to make everyday moments special. I had donuts and milk for the kids to eat, and they each had a place setting with their name and grade, plus a special toy sitting on their plate. That's what they are all playing with in this photo. When Avery saw all this today she said "MAMA!! Is today my berfday?!" That girl makes me laugh!

Avery does some fun preschool activities, including letter and number recognition. She loves Do-A-Dots, so this was a fun activity for her. She kept herself very occupied with her activities and her new school supplies. She loved drawing in her notebook!
While she was busy, we started on our My Father's World US History curriculum. This is mostly for Christian, but Ansley will participate as well, and there are many fun activities for both of them. Today we did some map work, read some stories and discussed a Bible verse. This might be my favorite thing about this year because there are so many fun activities that I am looking forward to!
Ansley read her Science, which is Apologia Zoology. She can do this mostly on her own, so she was able to get this done while Christian and I continued on.

Christian is using Handwriting Without Tears to practice handwriting. He can do this mostly on his own, but I do watch so I can make corrections if I need to. We are using All About Reading and All About Spelling for him as well. I really love both of these, and we have attached some magnetic dry erase boards to the wall in the schoolroom for these subjects. There are lots of word tiles that you use to spell words and review, so it's very hands on, which is good for Christian. It's a great curriculum!

Moky really loves it too! He will be reading in no time. Or, he'll just continue to bat at the letter tiles.

Avery is still very happy, and she loves building letters from this wooden set. She got a big kick out of this!
We won't start math with Christian until next week.
Ansley has it easy for a little bit. We are doing a co-op starting in September, Classical Conversations, and that is our grammar, spelling, and writing curriculum. So Ansley is just doing history with Christian, reading her Science, practicing handwriting, reading books, and doing math. She has it pretty easy right now.

Mimi stopped by for lunch, and the kids enjoyed showing her all the work they had done. Here Christian is showing her his map work.

After lunch, I made a deep dish cookie pie that everyone enjoyed to celebrate the first day of school.

Then Ansley did her math. We use Math U See.
And then we called it a day!
It was a really great first day, with lots of smiles and laughter. I do love these days together, learning and having fun together.

And I'm pretty sure these guys think I put this blanket on the table just for them. They are ever present in our school day, and so curious about everything we are doing. But after a long day of school, they were worn out!
Here's hoping tomorrow will go just as well as today!