This pic sums it all up!

I have had a lot to say about school starting this week. I even started a few other posts but they felt to down, or cynical. Maybe I'll post about it another time. There were a few rough days there. Today was the first full drop-off - no parents allowed. The kids lined up this morning, Mrs. F-T asked the kids to hold up their hands, then wave to the mommies and daddies - and away they went.

Izzy said, "I cried a little bit. Then I feeled better. Then I had so, so, so much fun!!! We sang a song about apples and muffins. The teacher read a book about a dog and his first day of school. I ate my snack and made a new friend and her name is C..."

Mommy is so, so, so proud of her!

It's a school night!

Right now I am taking advantage of an unusually quiet afternoon. Rob is across the room playing Super Mario on the Wii. Alex is upstairs in his room playing Lego with his friend T. Izzy was just called over to her friend M's house to play. I am printing off activity sheets and experiments from the Environment Canada website. Over the summer we ordered the (free) posters and have just put them up on one of the walls. I am making a list of things I need to pick up to start our weather lessons. We will be making our own barometer, thermometer and anemometer. There will be lots of experiments dealing with air mass and solar heat. Plus we'll track weather from coast to coast. I figure its a good way to teach him about the other provinces too. This should be something we can spend the entire year on.

I should log off now and head upstairs to check on the status of the bread. I've been fretting over this pioneer lunch for Alex. The boy just eats so much during the day and there isn't much protein I can send with him without having the ability to keep it cool. My kids eat very well but they eat a lot, all day. Hard to satiate the belly with apples, carrot sticks and buns. We'll have to pretend that the Babybel cheese and pepperette sticks are are authentic.

Where to start?

Well. the work boxes are ready but I am not *starting* school until the 14th. Alex will be doing the pioneer camp all week and I think that they are gradually admitting the kids into kindergarten, meaning she will not be in class every day next week.

So I have a week to get things together. I've been working like a maniac cleaning and organizing the house. I mean, I know I have about 4 pairs of kid scissors around but they are upstairs, downstairs and heaven knows where else. So, I think, wouldn't it be nice to find all the stuff hidden around the house and when I need scissors/glue/tape/etc. I will be able to find it asap. Nice in theory, huh?

I know I need to focus on Alex's writing this year. Rob is upstairs right now working with him on adding and subtracting three and four digit numbers. He can do it. He just doesn't write it out very well. I don't expect him to be a perfect writer but I don't want to hinder other parts of his learning because he can't write well. Doing a science experiment is great but having him write anything down about it is excruciatingly difficult. I admit, though, that my big concern is the 'what if something happened and he needed to go to school' mentality. They would probably ignore all the things he excels at and focus on the few things he lags in.

That makes writing a priority this year. Everything else seems to be quite flexible. Which is good and bad. I sit here wondering where do I start? What should we do? Sometimes I wish a curriculum fairy would just drop off a list for me. I should probably just start by getting off blogger :-)