Our First Day of School!

We started school today!!  I like having Daddy here on our first day, even if it is Labor Day! We did the same thing last year and it worked well.

Here are my little sweeties...







We had a super fun treasure hunt ready for them after breakfast.

This was their directions:



We packed everything in our treasure box we always use for school rewards.  The treasure contained all kinds of fun things like school supplies, Star Wars toys and ring pops!



Chad spray painted a really neat looking compass on the ground (with correct direction).  I took pictures of it, but it just didn't show up in the picture well with all the sunshine and dead grass!

We put these little clue boxes at each marker.  Andrew read off the directions, they stepped it out and found each box.  The clue was the numbers.  So Ethan wrote the numbers out on a clipboard.  They gathered each clue in the correct order, wrote the numbers in the boxes and matched it with the "code" on the treasure box.  It unlocked!





They had a great time.  We enjoyed watching them.





We made it through our school work.  Of course, it was the bare minimum.  But it was a good start.  It's going to take us some time to get set in a routine.

We celebrate the holiday this evening with some friends over.  We grilled some burgers and hot dogs and had lots of other good food that everyone pitched in.  We even had a fire and made smores.  Great times.

I am posting my files for the treasure hunt so you can do your own!

Treasure Hunt key

Treasure Hunt Directions

Our Morning Notebook

I love the idea of a morning board, but we are limited with space.  So I made a morning notebook to use each day in our circle time.  It's in a cute Dayspring 3 ring binder I bought last year and didn't use.  It has a great reminder on the front of it...Think about all you can praise God for.



What's in there:

Monthly Calendar (made on Word)

Yearly Calendar To Count out 100 Days of School (to celebrate!)

Prayers for each day

Pledge of Allegiance

Weather Graph

What's the Temperature?

Skip Counting Charts

I wanted to add the Godly Character Traits to the notebook, but I also wanted to keep those altogether.  So I hung those up on the wall so we can see the one we are working on each week!



I also have some stuff just for me because I know I won't keep up with more than one notebook!

School Attendance Calendar

My lesson plans for the week - Front and Back.

I am getting closer and closer to our start date.  These things are finally getting completed!

Daily Focused Prayer

As part of our morning routine, we will be focusing on a prayer each day.  I will add this to my morning notebook.

Download the file here:  Focused Prayer

2010-2011 School Calendar

It's planning time!  Here's a printable calendar if you should need one!

2010-2011 School Calendar

Godly Character Traits

One goal I have for next year is teaching my boys Godly character traits.   I wanted to create something visual to be used during our school time.  With the help from Hubbard's Cupboard info on character, I created this!

[caption id="attachment_2850" align="aligncenter" width="134" caption="Click here to download your copy!"][/caption]

My plan is to laminate each page.  We will focus on one each week, so I will have that on our morning board.  There's a lot you can do with each of these.  This can get you started!

Enjoy!  Oh, and please let me know if you see any mistakes!

Hippity Hoppity Easter's On Its Way!

You know kids.  They want to know how many days until....?  Ethan is especially like that, so I made a calendar to count the days until Easter.  We got our Easter stuff down from the barn yesterday while it was so warm.  It was so cute watching them hide eggs for each other.

So download my calendar here and print it!

Easter Calendar

I will be using Christian Easter related stickers to cover up a number each day.

These are some little Easter bag/baskets purchased from Walmart for $1 last year.  I have other baskets I use to fill for them, but I am still searching for those perfect ones!