Week one. Done.

We started school this week. I'm not gonna lie...it wasn't all giggles and smiles. After a really busy, really fun summer, and coming right off of surgery + recovery, jumping right into school Monday morning wasn't the easiest thing. Jake was the most reluctant and rightly so, I suppose. Monday was his birthday, after all. (don't worry, I didn't make him do too much, plus I decorated our school room and made him a cake! Not to mention the Harry Potter DSi game he got)


But even I forgot how much it work it was for me. I was seriously exhausted by the end of the day, Monday. Poor Megan....I forget this is Kindergarten for her, and she's still little. And though she participated a lot last year, she wasn't really expected to do a whole lot. So by about 3:30 (even though we'd been done for hours by then) she was SO ready for a nap! I can always tell when she just starts cryin' for no reason!

There may have even been an instance one day this week when I threatened: "I WILL SEND YOU BACK TO PUBLIC SCHOOL SO FAST...!!!" I think all homeschooling parents threaten with that at least once a year. :) Even though public school wasn't all that bad for Jake when he went. But unless we move to a better school district, I could never follow through with that threat! Anyway, it took a day or two to get into a groove, but we ended on a high note. I think we're all more prepared for the weeks to come.

We ended the week today with mostly games and projects. I liked that. The kids, of course liked it too. It brought everything we worked on during the week together. The project above was something I got from here.
I haven't received our science curriculum yet, so for now I'm kinda flying by the seat of my pants. I'm really looking forward to NOT having to do that anymore! However, I did want to share these fantastic books I got at Costco yesterday. I'm a HUGE fan of the kids book section at Costco. Especially this time of year (when they start getting the Christmas stuff out O_o ) they usually have some great finds. If you look at the top picture, on the right, I've got those 10 tall skinny books. That's what I picked up yesterday. I think they were 5 books for $12--something. They're all science related, from space, to the human body, inventions etc.. The 2nd set is the animal kingdoms. Each book has 100 facts + quizzes and activities about the subject. Each set also came with a huge, ginormous, too big to fit in my tiny room, but still awesome anyway posters. One of the human body and one of the animal kingdoms. So, if you have a Costco near you, go look and see what you can find. Honestly, if I didn't have a lot of money for science curriculum, I would use these books as a base and then supplement. The pictures are great and really catch the attention of the kids. My two sat down with these yesterday and just poured over them. These books are excellent additions to any science curriculum or kids home library! They are well worth the $12 and some change for a set. In fact, there was one more set I didn't get and I'm going to go back for it!
P.S. Several of the other books in the picture were also Costco finds. I just can't resist a good kids book.