off and running

Today we bid welcome to the new school year! Yep, we began our first trimester this morning - doing second grade, kindergarten, and a handful of toddler activities.

I started the day with great ambitions, and amazingly enough we sat down to breakfast at 8:00 AM! This is something I would love to achieve regularly, but rarely do. It felt like such a triumph to make it work on this day of fresh starts.

I've been wanting to begin a tradition or two to commemorate the new school year. As I kid I have memories of stocking up on school supplies, new clothes, maybe a new coat or pair of shoes. We haven't done that lately because...we don't have to. We get new things as needed, but not so much in connection to school.

Still, I didn't want my kids to feel that they were missing out. (Or maybe I was the one afraid of missing out?) At any rate, I wanted to mark the day in some way. Unsurprisingly, my thoughts turned to food, and so...I guess we have our new tradition:

Apple cider and homemade donuts.

They were really good (my second attempt ever) and I'm pleased to report that no one was burned by hot oil or pans. Against all odds, I didn't even set off any smoke alarms.

So, we were off to a good start - generally following the rough schedule I'd worked out, cheerful - and I was gathering my older boys and had just gotten out the first book, when it came to my attention that there was a distinct odor coming from a particular little bottom.

Yeah, should've scheduled for that.

Still, we made it through. Today we covered Old Testament, history (we're studying ancient Greece this year), reading, P.E. (we even had time for recess!), geography, and math. I'm trying to stay more in line with Charlotte Mason's concept of short lessons, and so far it's working nicely.

It wasn't perfect. Apart from that first stinky hiccup, we had some whining, tears, arguing, pencil flinging, clowning, clambering, and so forth. No, it wasn't perfect - not by a long shot!

But it was a start.