First Day Of School 2020!

When I first started to plan out our homeschool year I had thought of a few options for when to have our first day of school. My original thought was to stick to what we were used to and start the day after Labor Day, but we had a camping trip planned at the end of that week. I wondered if it would be better to just wait and start once we were back from that camping trip, but that would put us starting school on the 16th which also happens to be my birthday. No thanks! 

One day when I was talking on the phone with our Lighthouse Academy advisor I asked her what qualified as a field trip. She told it is any experience where the kids are going to be doing things that are educational. Duh...I knew that, but really what is educational...it doesn't have to be sitting at a desk reading about plants and animals or doing math facts. I told her about our upcoming camping trip and how Michael was planning on taking the kids fishing, teaching the older boys to play golf, playing mini golf, building a fire and also going around and exploring the area. She told me that is sounded like a wonderful educational experience and it would be perfectly acceptable to count our whole camping trip as a field trip! Amazing!!! 

After finding out that good news I decided to have us start school on Tuesday, September 1st. I figured new month, new adventure. With us starting that early the kids would have 4 days of school the first week and 4 days of school the second week...we didn't take Labor Day off, but we left for our camping trip on Friday. I felt it would be nice to have a bit of schedule under our belts before taking our first field trip of the year. 

The nice thing was we got back from camping with the Kuch's on Saturday, August 29th so we were able to get the trailer unpacked and put back together that same day. On Sunday I was able to get all the kids PACE's organized and then Monday was a down day to finish up anything last minute things that needed to be done. I also fit in a massage which I think is going to be my back to school tradition from now on. :) 

I posted our schedule in a previous post so I won't list that here. I didn't wake up the kids extra early to take pictures I just told them once they were ready we'd head outside and snap a few shots. Right when I was finished with the last picture my alarm went off saying it was time for school. Perfect timing!  

Jackson is always the first one to be ready to go in the morning. 

It's only going to be a couple more years and this shirt will fit just fine. 

Heading into 7th Grade...Class of 2026. 

Handsome Jackers! 

First Day of School! 

My sweet boy! 

Owen the reluctant kiddo that doesn't want his picture taken. He humors me though! 

How can it be that he's going to be graduated in only 5 years! 

Last year of middle school! 

First day of school! 

This young man is almost taller than me! 

Pretty princess is ready for school! 

Ella said her shirt looked like a dress. 

4th grade here she comes! 

First day of School! 

My precious girly! 

Zeke Russell ready for school! 

Such a big guy! 

3rd grade he's coming for you!!! 

First Day Of School! 

My Zekers! 

Hello Zombie Jack! :P

He's so not amused! 

This is her favorite pose! 

He's the biggest goofball around!

The students of Martin Family Christian Academy! 

Buddy boys and desk mates! 

Buddies and desk mates! 

I covet your prayers! LOL!!!! :):) 

I do covet your prayers, however I am absolutely loving homeschooling my kids! I wish that I had made the decision to do this years ago....although I know that God had us planted at the school for a reason. We met so many great people and it gave the kids the experience of public school. The best thing that came out of the kids going to public school was Mom's in Prayer. Over the years I prayed with 4 other ladies for our school. We saw so many answered prayers and I know that's a big reason why God wanted my kids at public school. 

At their desks and ready to learn! 

I love our school set up! 

Fast Forward to the present: 

It's been working out amazingly well! The kids help set up for school every morning. They have to open their desks and then we bring everything to the scoring table...aka the dining room table. 

At the scoring table the kids or I score their work. All the score keys for each of their PACE's are in this black plastic holder. The white basket holds flash cards, stapler, extra erasers, color pencils, crayons, markers and a small Math Kit. There is also the holder for the red pens. When scoring if there is an error they put a red X next to the question. They take their PACE back to their desk, find the correct answer, fix it and then rescore. Once the error has been fixed they circle the red X. 

Ella scoring her Creative Writing.

For the most part the kids prefer me to score their work which is fine. I am super picky though. They have to capitalize words, use proper punctuation and spell words correctly. I've told the kids that public school didn't do them any favors because it seems like none of them HAD to do that on a consistent basis. It's also been nice to teach them Math and have it not be Common Core. Jackson absolutely hated long division and he got to learn the old way...the easy way and he literally put his pencil down, looked at me and said..."Public School sucks!" Now I actually did appreciate certain aspects of Common Core, but overall it was just so over the top. My child went from absolutely loathing division to now not fussing at all. That's so encouraging to me! 

Side Note: Please don't take this post to be bashing on Public School. I really did love our kids' school...except the last year. I loved their teachers as well! Do I think that there need to be improvements to the Public School System...FOR SURE. Do I believe that homeschooling is for everyone...NO WAY. Doing what is best for your kids and your family is what matters most.

 

One the kids finish a PACE they take their PACE Test and if they get above an 80% they get a star for their Progress Chart. Our school is year is broken up into 4 - 9 week quarters so the star goes on the corresponding week for that quarter. Each PACE has a color assigned to is. Math - yellow...English - red...Word Building - purple...Science - blue...Social Studies - green...Creative Writing - silver. If they get 100% on their PACE test they get a gold star instead of the corresponding color for that PACE. As I type this we are 6 weeks into the school year and Zeke has all gold stars except for Word Building! In front of his Progress Chart he's holding his Congratulation Slip. That's a piece of paper that I write the PACE # he completed with the percentage he passed with. I also bought a bunch of motivational stickers at The Dollar Tree to stick on the Congratulations slips for fun! 

For the most part the kids are usually done either a little bit before lunch or right after lunch. There have been a few rough days where someone was working until 4pm, but thankfully those are few and far between. I'd say on average everyone is finished between 1:30pm & 2pm most days! 

Back to the First Day Of School! 

The kids all felt it would be appropriate to celebrate the end of our first official day by getting Slurpees! I think that's definitely going to be a tradition from now on!