First Day of First Grade

Well, today was the official first day of school at the Watts Academy. And it was so much fun--for everyone! I think a lot of you out there are wondering what exactly we're doing, so I'm going to tell you. We are following the curriculum presented in a book called The Well-Trained Mind, which we highly reccomend for anyone who has ever even considered the homeschool option or who is just interested in supplementing a regular school curriculum. We have tweaked the suggested schedules and subject matter to fit our family and situation best. We have decided to adopt a flexible schedule (for obvious reasons), rather than a fixed schedule--which means that instead of always having Math at, say, 9:00, we have Math for 40 minutes per day. Period. We may get it done first thing in the morning, or it might get pushed to the afternoon, depending on our needs on any given day. (Although we are attempting to have a consistent start time and to keep the classes more or less consecutive, when possible). Here's the class breakdown:

Math--40 min. M-F
History--90 min. T/Th
Spelling--20 min. M-Th
Grammar--25 min. M-Th
Free Reading--30 min. M-F
Science--60 min. M/W
Structured Reading--30 min. M-F
Portuguese--30 min. M-F
Art--60 min. M

In addition to our regular Monday schedule, we also managed to work in a little economics (trip to the store) and P.E. (play on the beach) today to round out our day. I'm sure there will be days when one or all of us are wondering why we ever thought this would be a good idea, but for the most part, we are all really excited and feel like we are doing the right thing for us at this time. We don't have any pictures of Ruth dolled out in new school clothes or with a brand new backpack, but we did manage to snap a few pics of her first day. (Which you will have to check out on flickr, because Blogger won't let me put them here). Check back often to keep up with Ruth's (and our) progress through First Grade.