Today is the "official" back-to-school day in our district. I've been working in a bit of homeschooling here and there over the summer, but today is the day it begins, officially.
I have spent the last couple of weeks planning and tweaking the schedules for the start of the school year. There are three schedules: mine, Casia's and Garrett's. Everyone has their schedule posted so they can see what they should be doing at any 15 minute interval of the day. I have to have a plan or I feel lost.
So my day begins ahead of the kids so I can get a quick shower in and some household chores started. Afterwards, a hot breakfast and then at promptly 8am, Casia's schooling begins. It's language arts instruction followed by math while Garrett finds ways to amuse himself (namely playing outside). Then Casia has some independent work while I spend some quality one-on-one time with Garrett reading or playing a game. Both the kids get a break to play outside while I finish a few household chores and start lunch. After lunch, I get Garrett on the bus and I have a few minutes to catch up on paper work and prep for the afternoon while Casia practices her musical instruments. Depending on the day we focus on either social studies or science while Garrett is at school. The after school schedule is different every day of the week with a gym class at the Y for Casia on one day, drum lessons for Garrett on another, rock climbing for Casia on yet another or time specifically set aside to play and have social outings.There's also one afternoon set aside just to run errands. Evenings are pretty straight forward with Girl Scouts one night and the rest of the week is a quiet dinner at home followed by relaxing family time. Sounds great, huh?
If only it ran that well today. In fact, it didn't run that way at all today. It ran, that's for sure, it ran really quickly, but it looked a lot more like this....
I overslept! Then there was an overnight accident from my son which created unexpected laundry and an extra person to shower. By the time I got downstairs, it was already 8am. After feeding the kids, making Jacob's lunch, a speedy clean-up and grabbing a quick bite to eat myself, I was running about 45 minutes behind, but there was one just one more thing I just had to do before we got started.
A tradition I have done each year on the first day of school is to take a picture of Casia standing in front of the magnolia tree in our yard. We planted that tree when Casia was born to commemorate the occasion. We have since dubbed the magnolia "Casia's Tree". We have a maple that we planted at our wedding eleven years ago and another was planted when Garrett was born. His is a sycamore. And because I know this transition to homeschooling after four years of public school is a little tough on Casia, I wanted to try to keep some of the same traditions. I wanted today to still have that important feel for her. So I asked her if I could take her picture. She was eager, as I'd expected, but she wanted to still stay in her pjs. It was one of the perks I used to help sell the homeschooling idea over the summer. Sure, I say, as we head out the door. But instead of the tired old pose with the backpack waiting for the bus in front of the tree, she climbs on up and poses from up high. "It's not like I'm waiting for the bus," she cries with a bit of glee. That's the attitude, Casia!
Heading back in, it was already almost 9am. I asked Casia to grab her notebook and meet me in the kitchen (her preferred homeschooling location) and ran to get my stuff from my office. Came back to the kitchen and Casia was no where to be found. Ah, I hear the kids in the family room, so I head over there. They're playing a game together, which always makes me smile, but sadly, I've got a schedule to keep! Sorry kiddos, Casia needs to get started but I promise them there will be some together playtime before lunch. Casia trots off to get her stuff and I hear the washer stop in the laundry room, so I run to switch the load really quickly. As I'm doing this, Garrett shows up with a Superhero picture from the game he's playing with the name Punisher on it. He wants to know if he's a good guy or bad guy. No idea! But I promise to check it out before the morning is through. I hop back into the kitchen and there's still no Casia. I find her in the dining room around the corner, where her homeschooling stuff is stored on bookshelves, only she's not pulling out the school stuff, she's distracted with Legos. Casia- focus! School stuff, then meet in the kitchen in 3 minutes. Garrett calls out to me. He's pulled his ginormous superhero book off the shelf and wants me to read the part about the Punisher. So I read it to him and it turns out Punisher is a vigilante, kind of good but kind of bad, hope that clears it up, Garrett.
Back to Casia. Finally, we're starting. Casia writes out her quote for the day. Then I give her a spelling pretest. It's a short week so I made a short list. During the week she has to write a sentence for each word she missed on the pretest. On Friday she will be tested on the whole list. Then the grammar lesson. We reviewed nouns; types of nouns and pronouns. I gave her a paragraph in which she had to underline all the nouns and circle the pronouns. Next up- math!
Last time we did math it was a unit ending test. She's working on algebra with ratios, proportions and fractions. We went over the couple of problems she got wrong on the test. I taught her a new way to approach the algebra problems and she she picked it up effortlessly, so tomorrow we can move onto percentages.
We were starting to hit some smooth sailing at this point. Garrett was amusing himself nicely outside while I had instruction time with Casia. I felt like we covered some, if not all of the material I wanted to cover in math and language arts. At this point I stopped to take a deep breathe and relaxed. With morning lessons over, I sent Casia out to play with Garrett, skyped Jacob to fill in him a little, and then started making lunch. We had a nice lunch of sandwiches and fresh fruit and talked all about Garrett's upcoming first day. Casia gave him lots of advice, like 'don't brag' and make sure you sit in the first two seats behind the bus driver. I told him to remember to ask the other kids their name and have fun!
After lunch, things started to get a little hectic again. Garrett managed to come in from outside dirty and is always a messy eater, so there was an outfit change with a lot of washing before school. There is a bus sign he's supposed to wear and I hadn't emptied the pictures off my memory card. Those were just a couple of the several last minute things I ran around remembering before we made it out the door. Then it was a mini-photo shoot of Garrett on his first day of Kindergarten!
Garrett in front of his Sycamore Tree.
Garrett is animately cheering for the bus to show up.
Casia is sharing in her brother's excitement.
So we wait, and wait, and wait a little more. The buses always run slowly the first day of school because of all the crazy parents like me who just have to get a picture of their little one climbing those big first steps of independence onto the bus. This is what Garrett has been waiting for, all summer long. Not school so much, but that first thrilling bus ride. The anticipation was killing him; us really, it was so infectious. Then, from around the corner I hear it! It's here, I shout. With camera posed, and last minute instructions about how to turn and wave as he steps into the bus...
Wooosh! The bus blows right past the driveway. Wrong bus? Maybe? Hopefully? Nope. I catch the number on the side as it zooms by. That was it. I run after it, with camera in hand, free arm waving wildly. It slows... a little... but then picks up speed again. It's gone and I turn back to the house and there's Garrett. The tears were streaming down his sad little face. From ecstasy to utter devastation in less than a minute.
In the aftermath, I was eventually able to calm him down. A quick face wash to clean away the tears, a little pep talk and we were ready for the drive to school. The kids played on the playground while we waited for the buses to arrive. When they did, we introduced ourselves to the driver and she was nice enough to let Garrett climb aboard for a quick picture and I once again had my smiley, happy sunshine all ready for his big first day.
So that was my morning and it held a valuable lesson for me. The unexpected will happen. We will run late. We may not get everything done that we'd planned. But it's all good. I slowed our pace that afternoon. Casia practiced her violin and then her trumpet. We did a shortened history lesson on ancient Egypt and Casia read and then climbed some more trees. Later, she and I had a great time baking some oatmeal raisin cookies to surprise Garrett with when he got home from school. As we were bonding during the mixing and measuring, Casia leaned into me and said, "Mom, I love being able to help you make the cookies. It's even better than being surprised by them when I came home from school." I knew then that even with the delays and disappointments, this has been a very successful "official" first day.
Congrats on your first official day! Although I do not have a profoundly gifted child, I know exaclty the struggles you refer to from a different perspective. I had a very young kindergartener who we academically VERY ready for school learning but completely socially unable to function in a large group. His *special need* is a hearing impairment significant enough to affect classroom functioning, but moderate enough not to warrant adaptation in the eyes of the school. He was so lost that half way through K he didn't even know half of his letter sounds and could not count to 20. He was no longer excited about school, he was faking sick so he could come home! I even had him tested for learning and attention disorders, confident that the school knew what was best for him!
ReplyDeleteNow as a young 2nd grader he is reading beyond most of his peers and functioning above grade level across almost all of the subject areas. All he needed was a change of scene and a new direction for his learning. I hope that this change will provide the same reknewal for your daughter!
Thank you, Heidi, for sharing your story. I am so happy to hear your son is doing so well!
ReplyDeleteI think for me, getting over the assumption that the schools alway know best, was initially difficult but in the end, very empowering. We sometimes forget that nobody is more an expert on our children than we are, and ultimately, no one has more vested in their best interest than we do.
And thanks for the words of encouragement. I'm both nervous and excited for Casia and for me. I really think we're going to have a lot of fun with homeschooling!