First Day of School

First day of school! I decided to take the first-day photo in swim gear to show what kind of first day you can have when you homeschool. :)

Today Xander slept in a little bit. (So did I, but I got up when I heard Nick come out to the living room.) We are not doing workbox lessons today because this afternoon there is a Not Back to School Party with area homeschoolers at a big pool.

We did, however, do our morning meeting stuff. We checked and changed our magnetic calendar, pledged our allegiance to the United States flag and then the Texas flag, crossed off days on Xander's Dinotopia calendar (and marveled at the pattern all the cross-offs made), read a paragraph about our country's first president, and read a page about Texas.

(State motto: "friendship"
State bird: mockingbird
State tree: pecan tree
State flower: the bluebonnet, of course)

Somehow, this led to Xander wanting to write (draw) in his journal. I'm not going to stop that!

Nick and I read Where's That Fish? several times this morning. He loves that book. I borrowed it from the library several months ago along with a book called Ocean Counting: Odd Numbers. He fell in love with both of them. Yesterday, I found Where's That Fish? at the library and re-borrowed it. Nick saw it and asked where "Ocean Numbers" was. I didn't have it, so he burst into tears. Geez.

But he has been loving reading Where's That Fish? ever since. I am really going to have to buy a copy.

We are now back from the Not Back to School Party. It was hundreds of people at a huge pool and the kids both had a blast "swimming." Xander wore a life jacket and arm floaties the whole time, but he also "swam" around on his own with no fears for hours. Nick wore no floaties and wanted me to hold him. By the time we left, he was practically swimming on his own with my arm around him. He still loves being dunked underwater, almost limitlessly.

Close-up First Day of School photo