Our primary room where we will be learning. It's mostly where I want it =) I'd love to see others' set up.
Monday - First Day!
ROUGH!
We were getting ready to take our first day of school pictures and printing out their signs, when I heard my oldest start to scream. I run out and don't see what happened. He points to his head and there's blood dripping down and a big cut. Somehow he had fallen backwards and hit his head on the bench. I ran around panicking because it was his largest wound and the hospital was far away. He kept saying he was going to faint. So I quickly put him in the car and ran back into the house grabbing oils, wallet and looking for the phone.
I called the doctor's office while driving to double check to see if I can just come in, but since he was complaining of possibly fainting, they told me to go to the hospital which was 15-20 minutes further from the doctor's office.
We realize that he forgot shoes and we both forgot our masks. Luckily they gave us masks inside and didn't worry about his shoes. I'm sure they see a lot worse.
They got him settled and cleaned out the wound. He took that well so they put 2 staples in without a shot. The doctor originally thought 3-4.
Glad he had that play dough stress ball that a child dept. lady gave to him because he hated the staples, but at least he didn't have a shot and staples. We really appreciated the kindness of our nurse, doctor and technicians. They were patient with my son and explained things to help calm him. They gave him the blanket and some socks since he had no shoes.
He wanted to see the back of his head and shirt once we got home. I figured this was one of the least "gruesome" shots to share.
We quickly did our back to school pictures. I didn't really want to do school because I was mentally exhausted after this morning, but the kids were so excited to start. I quickly had to figure things out since my son wouldn't be able to use electronics.
So first we headed to the library and I told them they all had to grab around 10 books. We had the librarian help us find some historical fiction books for my son, but most were checked out already. I had them choose some non-fiction books and I found some garbage truck books for my youngest so he was occupied too.
Library Books
Someone shared this quote on of the school Facebook groups which helped me because after having such a rough day you can start to doubt what you're doing.
Jeffrey R. Holland "With any major
decision there are cautions and considerations to make, but once there
has been illumination, beware the temptation to retreat from a good
thing. If it was right when you prayed about it and trusted it and lived
for it, it is right now. Don’t give up when the pressure mounts."
Since it was rough, I let the kids open 1/2 new MagnaTile boxes I grabbed on sale a bit ago. While they played with those I read some of their new library books.
Then I had them right the title of the book and author with a sentence with what they learned from each book so I can add these books to their Goodreads accounts if I can remember their passwords.
Then we just played a bunch of learning games, again all from SimplyFun. I love the SimplyFun games because they are educational, short, easy to learn, and to adapt for different levels. I made them take turns keeping score with each game to practice more math skills.
We started with Trifusion which teaches problem solving and pattern recognition to build connections.
Then we played Digger's Garden Match which helps with problem solving to make as many connections as they can which makes it challenging enough for adults to play =)
Our youngest loved his Garbage Truck books! He also enjoyed playing with the new MagnaTiles while I helped the other kids.
Tuesday
Today felt a bit more normal so I'll share our rough schedule/routine we're doing for now with my oldest not being able to use screens in case of a concussion.
We start at 9am. We have prayer, the pledge, gospel card, and scriptures. This will be our standard start each day. When my son is doing better we'll add a YouTube exercise short video or maybe we'll do walks or outdoor sports in the morning while we still have hot days and move that to the afternoons when it gets cooler.
Today we did some free printables from Big Life Journal, a mindset website focused on supporting kids. If you sign up for her emails, I think she sends out free printables every week. I really like her Back to School Care Package in her email last week. It was fun getting to know my kids' likes more and they learned more about me.
We do snack time around 10:30am. I looked up snack tray ideas so there was a little something they could grab anytime through the day.
I then had the kids list 3 educational goals they have for the first half of the year and what prize they should get when they achieve it. They were much cheaper than I was so glad I made them create their lists. I was going to offer my daughter $20 for new toys/clothes if she had her multiplication facts down, but she chose Coldstone. Works for me =D
I had the kids make bread with our bread machine. They learned the difference more between TBSP and tsp. =D
We then went on a walk at my 2 year olds request. Just around the block since it was so hot.
Noon we have lunch time to match with my husband's breaks with work since he works from home.
Then we did some read alouds with Math Curse and Stinky Cheese Man. I love doing math with a math story! We just did a few pages in each of the books. I need to get my voice stronger and have lots of water for all this reading aloud haha.
Next we played Sumology, another game from SimplyFun. Think Scrabble with math equations =).
We ended with coloring and listening to Ivy and Bean audio book. My oldest is really loving audio books. We've really learned a lot with his reading style in the last few months. Along with graphic novels, we learned that he enjoys historical fiction war books, ebooks, and audio books the best.
Wednesday
I would like to designate Wednesdays as our field trip/fun days to help break up the week. From a homeschool group, I heard most people take their field trips Fridays so I'm also hoping Wednesdays are not as busy.
Today after we did our standard items, we had lunch early and got ready to leave for the Museum of Natural Curiosity. You have to schedule a head time to get reserve times to go to any Thanksgiving Point venue. We were glad to see the play area open, but it sure is hard to play in there with a mask on. My youngest didn't love the rope nets so I had to get him.
They all loved the Courage room and we got good laughs out of there.
I haven't taken them to any parks so they really enjoyed getting outside on the zip lines there.
They probably loved the Water Works room the most.
My youngest loved the tornado. He's been obsessed with watching tornado videos lately.
They all love the wind chamber and the gas balls section.
My favorite was the measurement room. It's the room that gets changed up every month. I loved them trying to guess what 5 seconds was and balance scales and measure themselves with different units.
Thursday
Since I had to pick up my employee appreciation lunch on this day, we headed back to Thanksgiving Point again, but this time to the Museum of Ancient Life because they opened up their sand areas which was my kids' favorite part.
Today one of the workers shared with my kids a Stegosaurus spike which was cool to learn about and see.
After we grabbed some ice cream cones next door since they seemed to learn a lot more today and were good.
After, I found out our Beast Academy curriculum was ready to pick up so we grabbed those and then headed to pick up my Employee appreciation lunch. Then we stopped at Arctic Circle for some fries.
Friday
Now that my oldest could use electronics again, today we did our first lesson in The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts curriculum. They kids chose which poems there were going to memorize and then did their 20 minutes of reading before their snack/recess break.
After we did our first Beast Academy lessons. Since they are in different books for those, I had my oldest try out Imagine Math, free in our homeroom while I helped my daughter who doesn't love math get started with our new math curriculum. So far she really likes the story/graphics. Then while she did her workbook pages, my son got started on his.
Then it was lunch time. After lunch, I gave them a choice to either clean up the basement/homeschool room and then play games or finish their math to get a lesson check mark (when they get 30 lesson check marks completed between LA and Math, we get ice cream) and play Night Zookeeper.
They chose to clean up the basement and then we played several rounds of Linkity, another SimplyFun game (so glad I have all these games from 6-7 years ago). This game is a creative word connection game.
We survived the week! and everyone is still excited to learn!
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