Four days down, 176 to go!

Believe it or not - we just finished the 1st week of our 7th year of homeschooling. It's kind of hard to wrap my brain around it! Even though we're moving into the "veteran" stage of homeschooling now, I continue to learn new things about this lifestyle, teaching and my children.

So this week I learned....

1. No matter how prepared I think I am, I'm always woefully unprepared.
2. Sometimes the best lessons involve a 15 minute walk in the yard.
3. If I want the kids to learn something, all I need to do is put it under a vinyl tablecloth and they'll learn it. Even my 3yo is learning where the states are because her big sisters play "USA Bingo" (a game they invented) every time they're at the table. It's funny to hear Sadey talk about Montana, Mississippi and West Virginia one minute and then try to convince me that "A" really does say "meow" a few minutes later.
4. Crafts take much longer than I think they should.
5. Three year olds are easily amused with safety scissors, a glue stick and scrap paper.
6. Glue sticks don't make good lip gloss.
7. Nine and a half year olds can be awfully nostalgic when it comes to the 3 weeks they spent in a "real" preschool 7 years ago.
8. Middle sisters like to go first. It doesn't even matter what we're doing - reading time, crafts, a visit with the dr...they just want to be FIRST.
9. Patience is not something I was blessed with.
10. Thank the Lord that I was blessed with an exceedingly patient husband.

We'll be taking Fridays off until we start co op on September 5th, so this ends our first week of school. Next week we'll crack open the My Father's World books and I'll probably lose my mind trying to do 3 different programs each day. Too bad the house isn't self-cleaning. That would be nice....