Getting Ready

I'm in the throes of preparing for our new school year.  Public schools in our area started back on Monday, and it's hilarious to me that everyone I run into wants to know if I start on the same day!  For me, one of the fantastic things about homeschooling is being able to create a calendar that works for our family, not following the one that the public school officials have established.  For instance, we don't take a lot of the Monday holidays (with the exception of Labor Day, when I will be at Dragon*Con - but that's another story), but we do take days off when we are traveling or have other plans.  I also don't start school at 8:00am - I am not a morning person, so we take our time waking up and generally get started around 9am. 

Anyhow, we will be starting school this coming Monday, and since I'd been throwing things in the school room all summer without any attempts at organization, there was a lot of work to be done in there!  I spent most of the day Monday in an organizing frenzy, and accomplished quite a bit.  Thanks to Freecycle, I found a new home for two large boxes of stuff - books that the kids have outgrown, educational materials that my mom and sister (a college professor and an elementary school teacher) had given us that we weren't likely to use, etc.  At the end of the day, the room was looking orderly and ready for us to get started!

I'm also teaching first grade religious education at our church this year.  Those classes start next Monday as well, and I'm much more nervous about that than I am about starting our homeschool year!  I've taught religious ed previously, but only to preschoolers - this will be a change.  I'm fortunate to have an experienced co-teacher and two teen helpers, so hopefully that will help the year go smoothly!

It's going to be a busy fall semester.  I need to spend some time with my All About Spelling materials, but other than that I feel ready to go curriculum-wise; I just need to pray for peace, and the discipline to maintain our schedule this year!