Caden started kindergarten today. He has grown up so much! Since we homeschool, I have been wanting to officially start for a few weeks but decided to make today the first day. He's been very excited about starting kindergarten and I'm praying we have a wonderful year. He moved up a grade at church at the first of June and we've taken a few field trips with other homeschoolers, including visiting The American Airlines Center last week.
So how did the day go? Our first day went okay. I felt like Satan was attacking me ALL DAY LONG. I honestly considered going up to our public school down the street and enrolling him as they start next week. However, I had to remind myself that when we feel called to do something it's not always easy or something we always want to do, at least all the time.
The day started out rocky with Caden wanting to go to work with Collin. When he found out he couldn't go to work with him he had a huge meltdown, which is really rare that he has them. The meltdown woke up Gracie. He made a mess at breakfast including spilling his full glass of chocolate milk, something that is a special treat. Gracie only took one nap and it was in the car after we met some friends for lunch. He took the two eggs out of one of our trees in the backyard that belonged to this sweet mama bird and made a nest for them and put them in his room while I was feeding Gracie and trying to get her down for a nap. He opened his paint and painted a picture, thankfully that wasn't too messy. The paint was one of his gifts for school. I have noticed that I have to clearly define what I want and expect with him or he will make his own rules. He also got side tracked and made a lamp shade. Did I mention he's also good at making shoes and made our friend a pair of paper shoes last night before he left. One funny thing about this is that he really doesn't like shoes. Maybe he's trying to make a pair that he does like. Other than that, he did do all of his work. At the end of the day I had to remind myself that he's only in kindergarten and that many kids first day of school is just fun. We did do something fun. We met his friend, Shelby, and her mom and sister for lunch at Chick-Fil-A. They had fun eating together and playing on the playground. They don't homeschool so sadly we won't see them as much this year as Shelby is starting kindergarten as well.
Here are a few things we did. I introduced our weekly Bible verse. As part of getting a prize at the end of the week he has to memorize the verse. This weeks verse is Romans 3:23. He actually said it today. We'll review it daily. For science we learned about how rain works. We talked about history and made a family tree as our introduction to a timeline. We put God at the top. He did a few pages of math, some handwriting, language arts, and we read some books and some poetry. He painted and played with play-doh. He also built a bird's nest and added real bird eggs to it. I had him return the eggs to the nest and I'm hoping the mama bird will continue to sit on the eggs. I gave him his first day of school gift, we filled out a questionnaire, weighed and measured him, and I traced his hand and will laminate it. I wrote him a letter that I will share with him when he graduates high school. I'm basically going to make a time capsule and add letters, questionnaires, and hand prints every year. When he graduates it will be my gift to him.
Here are some pictures. I'm not going to take as many pictures of him doing his work as I did last year as that sometimes interferes with our work. Also I'm taking care of my baby while teaching him and literally have my hands full. I will take some pictures when he's done with his work and share them from time to time. After you see these pictures, I'll post the answers to his questionnaire. Some of them are quite amusing, including what his favorite thing about himself is. Future doctor, maybe?
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| Red Velvet Muffin for breakfast. I was going to do something else but hubby bought these. A truly special treat. |
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| Pictures together |
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| Bird's nest he made with real bird eggs inside. Yes, this was in his room! |
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| Sweet eggs. He even asked if he could sit on them until they hatched. Uh... |
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| Putting the eggs back in the bird's nest. |
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| Opening his first day of school gift. |
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| He got his own tape dispenser! He was super excited about this. It's the little things. |
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| I gave him lip balm, tape, paint, an electric pencil sharpener, dry erase letters, and a letter. |
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| Family tree he made |
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| I came up with this idea when I was changing the tp roll out. |
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| Painting |
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| Science worksheet |
My First Day of Kindergarten
- He wrote his name
- He's 46 1/2 inches tall and weighs 46.4 lbs (this was the first time the scale registered his weight! He's getting so big!)
- Best friend: Olivia
- Favorite thing to play: Anything with Mommy and Gracie
- Favorite color: Blue has been a favorite for a long time (although he also said he likes black, white, pink, and green)
- Favorite book: What Do People Do All Day? by Richard Scarry
- Favorite TV Show: Curious George and Kipper (Kipper is a new favorite because they are long)
- Favorite food: Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches
- When he grows up he wants to be a bubble and balloon maker
- Something he really likes: My Mom (so sweet, I told him to name a thing and he was persistent in putting me down)
- Something I don't really like: Everything that is bad.
- My favorite thing about myself: My blood cells (why? People they help keep him from getting sick and heal his body if he does get sick. Sounds like a typical 5 year old answer to me.)
- Something I want to do this year: Fly in an airplane
