First Day of Kindergarten

We started kindergarten today.  He was so excited! He wants to learn to read as soon as possible. 

We're doing things a little different than we did preschool.  I gave up on trying to do school in the school/computer room.  It gets too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.  We do school in the sitting room for now.  That way Eli has room to play when he's awake and I don't have to worry about him getting into all the wires and sockets in the computer room.  We might change things up again later, but for now the sitting room works just fine.

We also are making Silas wear a bit of a uniform.  He has to wear polo shirts while doing school.  It helps to differentiate when it is time to be serious and when it's time to play.  As soon as school is over, he gets to put on a t-shirt.  

I chose Horizons for phonics and math.  They had really bright, easy-to-follow pages and weren't very expensive.  We're doing Five In A Row for everything else.  Five In A Row is a literature-based program.  You choose a book from their list and read it every day of school (hence five-in-a-row) and choose subjects to cover based on those books.  We're keeping it simple at the start and chose Goodnight Moon this week.  The first day we covered rhyming.  Tomorrow we'll cover art/silhouettes that are seen in the book.  The next day we'll do a Bible verse based on God watching over us while we sleep.  The idea is to get Silas to love reading, but to also be able to get more in depth in any book he reads.  The last thing we're including in school is a book called Plants Grown Up about character traits.  It's based on 2 Peter 1:5-8 about adding to your faith virtue, to virtue, knowledge, to knowledge add self-control, etc.  It gives you 20-something different ideas of how to teach each trait.  

The first day went great and we're looking forward to the school year!