Finally! Our First Day of School!

Our life has been in a bit of upheaval lately. Suffice it to say, we were planning to move this past Saturday and had been planning toward that end for a couple of weeks when, about a week before the move, we found out that things were on hold with the house we planned to rent.

Buried somewhere in the mountains of boxes were 5 small boxes containing all the books and supplies I have been carefully collecting all summer to start homeschooling Benjamin this fall. Originally I planned to start school on the 16th of August, giving us plenty of room in our school schedule for trips, holidays, and other family events. When we made plans to move at the end of August I planned to postpone our start date. With our move now tentatively scheduled for the end of September/beginning of October, I knew we should go ahead and get started with school, but that was easier planned than executed.

First, we HAD to get our life back to some semblance of normality. We couldn't even move with all those towers of boxes taking up significant portions of our already minuscule living room and bedroom, not to mention the general atmosphere of upheaval that was cluttering our minds as much as our home. So Seth and I spent yesterday afternoon moving all our packed boxes along with a couple of empty bookshelves to a storage unit. Seth stripped down our family mini-van and converted it into a cargo vehicle deluxe. While he drove loads of boxes to storage I went to work filling our empty shelves and closets with packing materials and empty boxes. The result of this effort was a delightfully clean and clear living space after a month of mess. Ahh!

Moving one of the empty bookshelves in the living room and some of the kids' "living room toys" to their bedroom allowed us the space to construct the little table and chairs we purchased a couple of weeks ago to become Benjamin's desk. Seth went to work expertly constructing tiny furniture, while I unpacked the boxes I had set aside during our earlier purge. (Fortunately I had marked all the school boxes with "Open First" stickers, so they were easily identifiable.) After a couple of hours, this was the result of our efforts:

Everything was ready for Benjamin's first day of school.

This morning the kids woke up and immediately remembered that today was an exciting day. As I've said before, they normally read books until I come to get them up, but this morning they both emerged, tousle-headed and sleepy-eyed with a look of anticipation reminiscent of Christmas morning. They explored their new tot sized space, standing anxiously near their pretty new table, but not daring to sit down. They opened the pencil box filled with new crayons, scissors, glue sticks, pencils, and miscellaneous other thrilling treasures. They examined the slate and chalk. I pointed out that there was an envelope on the table. "What does it say?," I asked as Benjamin looked down at it. A big grin spread over his still-sleepy face, "It says Benjamin Riley!" He opened the card from his Daddy and Mama with all the pride of a very big boy. Hungry to take on the new-felt mantle of responsibility, he raced off to his room to get dressed, his sister following close behind him.

Throughout the morning Benj remained aware that he had crossed over some imaginary threshold into a weightier realm. When I asked him to help me put the milk away instead of grunting and groaning over how heavy the (2/3 empty) milk cartons were he bore his burden with dignity and declared happily, "I'm a big school boy helper!"

I should have realized that gorgeous new table and all those pristine supplies were begging to be used, but I blindly started out by introducing our Bible verse and character trait for the week, next settling the kids both on my lap for an educational look at a few classic nursery rhymes. When I laid the book aside and announced that we were going to take a little break to do our morning chores Benj collapsed in a dramatic swoon. "But I wanted to do schoooool!" I realized the next thing better be sitting at that table and using those brand new scissors or I was going to lose him forever. :)

We did have a little incident with those scissors.... Today was essentially the first time Benj had ever used scissors. For one thing he doesn't have a lot of strength in his hands and previous attempts have been frustrating for both of us. Another factor has been that Talia, while feeling like she can do everything Benj can do, truthfully sometimes lacks the maturity necessary to accomplish certain tasks (like weilding a pair of scissors--yikes!) So we sat down to do our first "real" (in Benj's opinion) school activity, making an "F" sheet to kick off our introduction to the letter of the week. In retrospect I'm not sure why, but I expected Talia to get bored fairly quickly and scamper off to play. She sat down, just as attentive as Benj, fully expecting to participate in this highly exciting activity. I quickly hunted down an extra pair of safety scissors and a spare glue stick (which, thankfully, weren't packed) and we commenced cutting and gluing magazine clippings of faces, frogs, fruit, and flowers to blank sheets of white paper. Somewhere in the middle of all the cutting and helping and "oh no! I put the glue on the wrong side!," Benjamin managed to cut 3 small but prominent holes in the tummy area of his polo shirt. Oops! Note to self: further instruction in cutting is clearly needed (preferably while Talia is napping).

I did take advantage of the quiet afternoon hours while the girls were napping/resting to cover some material I thought Benjamin would enjoy in a more one-on-one special time with just Mama. One of the books he has been most excited to start reading is the Berenstain Bears Science and Nature Super Treasury. As soon as the girls were down he brought it to me with an air of great expectancy. We opened to the first page, page 4, where we learned that a year is made up of 4 seasons or can also be identified as 12 months. On pages 6 and 7 we learned that January 1st, the first day of the first month, is called "New Year's Day" and that on this special day you wake up your parents by ringing a bell and shouting "Happy New Year!" (Let's hope that illustration didn't sink in deeply enough to be remembered 4 months from now.) Having completed the first reading assignment I closed the book. Benj was mortified. "But Mom! We only read 3 pages!" I explained that the assignment for today was to read through page 7. Tomorrow we would read the next section. He continued to sag with hearty disappointment. "We can keep going if you want," I offered. "But we won't have anything to read tomorrow." "YEAH! Let's keep going!" He perked up. "It's ok if we read the part for tomorrow." So we did. And he was satisfied.

It is so fun to see Benj (and Talia) giddy with the excitement of the prospect of learning. And so extremely satisfying that I get to be the one to see it all happening. I hope our school year continues on with as much fun and energy as it has started. :)