« short and dull | Main | boring dull test entry »

Tuesday, September 02, 2003

First day of school

This was our first day back at school. It went pretty well overall. C is totally enthusiastic about the whole idea, and she cheerfully memorized our week's Bible verse ("Do everything without complaining or arguing" -- appropriate, no?), traced lines and shapes (and an elephant -- learning pencil control), made patterns with unifix cubes, counted unifix cubes, and then did a lot of coloring, while LT got through his work without an unbearable amount of complaining. He did a writing prompt first (topic: How do you feel about starting school? text: I am feeling bad about starting school. Because I would rather just go in the pool.). Then he had a page of math, which was actually a pretest from a second-grade curriculum. I wanted to reassess where he is and what we'll have to go back over after taking a summer off. The verdict is, he's fully, FULLY done with first grade math, and probably beyond much of second even (we'll find this out over the next few days) but he could use some flash-card style reinforcement of basic math facts, since he keeps using his fingers. After the math, he read a story to C, and then he had a state worksheet. Perhaps I was unwise in having him do Hawaii first. All those darn island names. That probably took half our school time, considering that we were interrupted in the middle of it by someone coming by to drop something off for T.


Next we have to go to the library; LT is ecstatic because I checked their website and the Star Wars Incredible Cross-Sections book he requested is there waiting for him. We have to go to the bank too, and maybe the store. It feels good to be getting back in the school-year rhythm (although I really enjoyed the break from it as well) -- now if only the weather would get more autumnal, things would be even better. Blech, a hundred degrees really bites.

--------