Thursday, August 26, 2010

First Day of School!

Hey Mom, it's bright out here!


Waiting for the bus:

Oh wait--the 'bus' is in the garage.

We were very excited to send Carver off to his first day of school today. This year, he is enrolled in a brand new start up school, called Bloomington Christian Schoolhouse (I think--I never actually double-checked the name!). This is a hybrid school model, where Carver is at home with me for the first three days of the week, and then off to school for the last two. The teacher makes up lesson plans that help the parents know how to keep up on the at-home days. The school has been started up by a few of the families in our church, who love the academic rigor and character-building aspects of homeschooling, but dislike the all-consuming nature of it. So this way, the moms can have a couple mornings off a week to minister to the church, or maybe just minister to their younger children (that's me!). For us, it is an ideal set-up. Carver is surrounded by girls at home. At school, he has a few boys right about his age, and he is responsible to a male teacher for his work. The set-up of the school is like a one-room schoolhouse: grades 1-7 are in the same room, doing the same subjects at the same time, but on different levels. So, there's the gist of it! I could go on and on about how much I love the set-up, the curriculum, the teacher, the discpline, every part of it, but I'll quit there.

On a different note, David told me not to cry as I dropped Carver off this morning. That thought had never even entered my mind! Maybe I've just seen for a while now how Carver would benefit being around other boys, maybe it's because I love the idea, or maybe I was just happy to get rid of him :) That's not true at all, but it was nice to have all day with girls, reading books, folding laundry, reading more books, doing math with Ellie...it was just a laid back day, and I think it will help me to sustain the pace of our homeschooling schedule throughout the year to have two days to stop and take a breath.

Carver jumped in the car at 3:30, totally thrilled with school. He said, "Mom, I actually like school!" And he came home singing Latin verbs, so I've got some catching up to do!