Tyler started Kindergarten this year! I simply cannot believe I have a kindergartner. I don't know how that happened! The other part of that news is that after lots of praying, lots of talking, lots of question asking, we decided to homeschool. This was a really hard decision! I'm a teacher - I love elementary school! And there are definitely parts of keeping the kids home that broke my heart a little bit. Some of the things that they will miss - like Christmas concerts and class parties and the excitement of the first day of school and meeting new teachers and friends and countless other things actually. But for the most part, once we officially made the decision, I was very excited. The great parts totally outweigh the hard parts so far. We definitely feel like this is what we are supposed to be doing. And for the record, we did start school in September. Not December.
Tyler was beyond excited to start. And Carsten kept asking if he would get to do homeschool too. (Of course!)
One of the many perks to this new adventure is the flexibility to choose our own schedule. We kicked off the year with a trip to our favorite new park the night before, with no worries about getting them to bed early enough for a school night. So much fun!
And on the first day of school we woke them up with a little surprise. Carl and I turned a storage room downstairs into a school room! They had no idea. It was so fun to show them and see their excitement.
Then after a few quick pictures we headed to Perkins for a family breakfast to celebrate our first day. :-)
The rest of the day was spent in the school room. The rest of the day. Seven hours to be exact. I couldn't get them to leave! The loved it so much. We finished school and they just stayed there. They begged me not to make them eat lunch because they didn't want to leave the room for a single minute! Eventually I told them that school had to be over because I needed to make dinner. But they stayed there until there was food on the table and I made them leave.
Carl and I weren't sure it would be possible to have the room ready in time. And it wasn't quite. It was cleaned out and set up enough to be functional and for them to be excited about it. But we took everything back out a couple of weeks later to fix up some things and paint. And we got some new shelves and took out the old stuff that was in there from before. We love this room! It is so nice to have a space to store everything and a place to "go to school."
We had the best little paint crew!
So far it has been going really well! Tyler loves it and is a great learner. He is so excited to be reading and he asks almost every day if he can do extra math. Carsten joins us sometimes. We switch it up a little bit. Sometimes we do it in the morning with everyone and sometimes we wait until the other two are sleeping in the afternoon. There are days where all three of them are participating - even Aria is repeating sounds and blends and imitating everything the boys do. And then there are other days where Aria basically destroys the world. She needs to be watched like a hawk in that room or she draws all over her clothes and the newly painted walls with dry erase markers. One would think that dry erase markers would erase. But they do not. So this is why we switch it up. Some days we all enjoy it together and some days Tyler and I do it alone and are able to focus more.
In November Tyler started a home school gym class at the Y and it has been awesome for him. A new love was born when they started playing hockey. For some one who is usually the exact opposite of aggressive in any way, Tyler was not at all afraid to get in there and really play. Carl's reaction to these pictures was, "Oh, no! That's the most expensive sport!" :-) Tyler has never ice skated before though, so real hockey is not on the horizon just yet!
School at home is not always easy, but it is usually fun! And I feel really lucky to be on this new adventure with our kids. I am so happy that I get to spend all this extra time with Tyler and I love that they all get to spend so much time together.
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