First day of "school"

Today was our first day of school...well, we've been working up to this point anyway - what made it a first was we had nothing on the schedule until 3:00. So, we had six full, uninterrupted hours to work with.

We made it to 1:30. Then we went to Meijer.

Don't want to get off to too quick a start, after all.

I think Thomas's primary objection to a brick and mortar school is they would make him wear a shirt. He is generally shirt-opposed.

The day really did go quite well. Connor got online and looked over the home page for the virtual Latin class he is going to take. I suspect he is going to enjoy that tremendously. At one point when I was at the table doing workbook-y stuff with Thomas and Rachel, I asked Connor to please go in to the computer room and write a summary of what happened in the first half of the 21st century. Here is what he wrote:

1900-1950 Summary

In 1901, Teddy Roosevelt was president until 1909. Some people didn’t like him because he invited a black man named Booker T. Washington into the White House even though there was nothing wrong with him and the Civil War had happened a while ago.

In 1914, World War 1 started while Thomas Woodrow Wilson was President. The war lasted until 1918. Then the roaring 20s started.

The roaring 20s was when everyone had tons of money and were getting even more money from the stock market. Everyone was really happy that the war was over. Everything was going great until the stock market crashed because people kept withdrawing their stocks which caused the Great Depression.

The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1939 during which time, 1 out of every 3 people had no job. Herbert Hoover, who was president, would do nothing to stop it. So, the people elected Franklin Roosevelt to be their president. He helped stop the Great Depression.

We got into World War 2 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. We declared war on the Japanese, and later, Germany. World War 2 started in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland.

I thought that was pretty cool.

Rachel and I struggled a couple of times. Mostly, she was cooperative. She is intensely interested in Anne Frank and what happened to her. Her narration about Anne Frank went like this:

Hm. She did it on the laptop, which uses Word 2007 and it didn't auto-convert when I tried to bring it to our desktop via a flash drive. Too late to work on it now. Maybe tomorrow.

We also did the first lesson in Rosetta Stone Spanish. Rachel loved that. So, did THomas. For a while. I think that will stick.

Thomas is flying through his Bob books. He still gets "p," "b," and "d" mixed up. He is hilarious with his seemingly unquenchable thirst for knowledge. He chimed in quite a bit when we were discussing history. Very cute!

We had our first homeschool gym today and it was fabulous! The kids played Swedish dodgeball (the version I like with one ball), kickball, and something else I don't remember. Thomas fell asleep in my lap. His allergies are killing him. Dawn HS gave further advice about how to help him. Very helpful, but will cost time and money. Nice friend:)

I got rid of over a dozen books that we will never use. I love homeschool gym. Rachel spent the evening with the Elsassers. We came home and ate and played games with the boys. Connor and I played Scrabble. Thad and Thomas played outside. AFter Rachel came back home, we watched some home video from November 2001.

Play practice starts tomorrow and soccer starts next week. The Longs will be arriving this weekend for the Black Swamp. These last five days of relaxed intimacy will soon be a memory amidst the swirl of activity that will soon be upon us. It'll all be fun stuff - but I love playing Scrabble!