Today is Back To School day. In our house that means hubby's three kiddos go off to school and it also marks the day we officially begin homeschooling for our next school year (we casually homeschool throughout summer but now the big guns are drawn). Usually we do something snarky and fun to celebrate 'not back to school' day but I wasn't in the mood today. Actually I wasn't actually prepared to start homeschooling as of last night so I had to sort of scramble to make up schedules and agendas and goals for myself, the kids, etc. This year Dalton is in 7th grade, Teegan is in 4th grade and Noah likes to say he's in Kindy :-P I managed to pull off a great schedule for all of us, a new leaf turned over.

To mark this new leaf, hubby just happens to be out of the house every day for 2 weeks wrapping up with a 2 day trip out of town. Today's first lesson: This is Mama's House!!!!!!!!!!!!

So here's what we got done today:

• I woke and started my new exercise routine and actually liked it!
• Had a light breakfast
• Waited and waited for Teegan to wake up at 10am (!!!!) to start homeschooling the bigger two boys.
• We did Saxon Math for both boys, journaling, spelling, Dalton did a paper on research, we started a geography project and also hung our huge map of the world and picked two countries from the Around The World quilt square swap we are in to locate on the map and learn about - Germany and El Salvador. This also led to a search for various countries (always begins with Vietnam) and then various flags (again with Vietnam). We did some Great Editing Adventure and each boy read an entire biography of a famous American Inventor (Thomas Edison and the Wright Bros, specifically). All of this in 3 hours!
• made HUGE lunch and ate
• homeschool Noah: we read a book, worked on reading (he read his first word - boy was he proud) and did some math tiles (patterning). Then we read another book on the Human Body which he then took and re-read to himself and begged a brother to let him read to them as well. I guess the body book was a big hit. Then he traced a bunch of letters, numbers and pictures in a sudoku book (don't ask!).
• quiet time
• Daily cleaning: Tuesday = bathroom deep clean
• Nicki time :-) That means checking email and blogging

And here we are. It's only 4:30. I feel super productive and great about my day. Tomorrow we are doing a crime scene investigation and starting our writing projects. We I am particularily excited about the crime scene investigation :-) now I'm off to Supper Thyme to make 12 meals for the next two weeks which is really fun and enjoyable for me. I don't have to shop, chop or clean up! Woohoo!