I guess it’s become our tradition to have box day on Moose’s first day of school (even though I’ve had the books for a few months!). I found that it’s too difficult to try to do it over the summer, because it’s so exciting, but Moose can’t really be a part of it. So now, we have box day immediately before the start of a new school year…works for me! This is always an exciting day for a homeschooling family!
“Box Day” is something of a misnomer this year, because the books weren’t actually in boxes this time around. Instead, I just gathered up most of the books we’ll be using (many of which we’ve had for a while), and spread them out on a table in the school room. There are a few books for later in the school year that I haven’t gotten yet, so those weren’t available for the children’s perusal…they’ll get to see them later in the school year.
I organized them by subject, for the most part. In addition to history, science, and electives, I also made a Ladybug stack. This consisted of a few books I’m especially looking forward to sharing with her during her kindergarten year. Here are the books we’ll be using for Religion:
I also put each child’s workbooks on his or her desk. Ladybug is very excited about her new books, to go with the Explode the Code books she’s already started!
Turkey and Bunny had their own (identical) stack of workbooks:
Everybody found something interesting to page through:
Another successful almost-start to the school year!
Homeschooling families can appreciate what an exciting day this was for us–the day we opened our new boxes of Sonlight materials for the coming year.
We’ve had the two boxes since last month, but I wanted to wait until Turkey and Bunny were officially done with Kindergarten before we looked at our new stuff. I don’t who was more excited about it–me or them. Turkey found the math stuff right away, and started digging through the manipulatives. He was also very interested in the science books. Bunny just wanted to look at every single book she found–House at Pooh Corner seemed to top out as her favorite, because she kept coming back to it.
Even though *I* went through the boxes when they arrived, to double-check the order, I was still amazed today at just how many books we’re going to be reading. It’s a daunting, exciting, wonderful task.
Now I just have to put together my instructor’s guides and get everything organized. And I think I need to get another bookshelf…
We got to have a mini Sonlight “Box Day” this week. It was, in a lot of ways, even more fun than our first “real” box day last summer, because Turkey and Bunny knew what the box was, knew there would be lots of books in it, and followed me (along with Moose and Ladybug, who were just plain curious), like a parade to the schoolroom.
It’s a decent amount of books, even though all I ordered was the next levels of Language Arts and Readers, which we’ll begin using in a few weeks. Nothing like a full box day, with all the subjects, but Turkey and Bunny entertained themselves for quite a while looking through the books, picking out which ones they’ve read before (some of the Dr. Seuss), guessing what others were about, and wondering if they would *really* be able to read some of them on their own before too long. It was kind of a nice break to the regular routine of school.
I had a moment of panic, however, as I looked through the teacher’s guide. We started our homeschooling journey, what, seven, eight months ago? And I had forgotten in just that short amount of time how daunting a task it is to hold that new teacher’s guide in my hands and realize that my children’s education is falling solely on my shoulders.
I remembered (rather quickly) having that same feeling as I looked at our first core purchase–I didn’t know how I’d be able to do it! Would they really be able to read the whole Fun Tales set by the time the year was over? (The answer is a resounding yes!) Would I be able to teach the things they need to know? Would I find a way to schedule my days to make the most of all of our time?
But as we settled into a routine, and I saw how eager they were to learn, most of those questions and concerns vanished. So here I am, back to square one, wondering how I’m going to be able to teach them to read longer words, to use proper grammar, to write on their own. I’m guessing that these concerns will also fade as we get started (I hope!).
I wonder if I will feel this way every year, as I see the difficulty levels of their materials increasing?