Homeschooling with a MISSION

A full day of “Firsts” could have never been so exciting, and you’ll never believe what made her cry (more about that in a minute). AbiNoelle’s day started with her FIRST experience with an alarm clock. We had instructed her the night before that when her alarm sounded, she was to get out off bed and put her clothes on, which had been laid out in her room. Well, the humor for us began as we watched her on the monitor when the alarm sounded.

She sat up, looked around, came to the edge of the bed and just stopped. You see, she has always been told to never get out of bed unless there was an emergency or she had Mommy or Daddy’s permission. We quickly reminded her that she should get out of bed and get ready for the day – it was the first day of school, and off she went…

Breakfast, picture time with Daddy before work, book bag packed with snack, time to ride the bus. What – you say – ride the bus? Yes, much to her delight, we sang the “Wheels on the bus” and had a blast pretending to drive the “bus” to school.

And then the BIG REVEAL – she finally got to go into the schoolroom. Everything was “new and different,” she said. “Look at the colors, and the bee, and my desk, and crayons, and stuff, Oh My!”

Soon we were settled and the A Beka DVD program began. How precious it was to hear Mrs. Wasser tell of when she first went to school, but that no one there told her of Jesus’ love. AbiNoelle was thrilled to sing a-long with her class, say Genesis 1:1, and listen to the Creation account. She also learned a new, big word – Attentive. Mrs. Wasser said that listening with your ears and watching with your eyes was being attentive. It was so interesting to observe our little, wiggly, active, child fix her attention on her teacher and become quite the serious student.

Having personally taught with Mrs. Wasser during my college days at Pensacola Christian College, it was both awesome and surreal to see my little “grown-up” girl exerting every ounce of effort to absorb what the teacher was saying. Wow!

From there, we rolled right along through the courses, meeting Mrs. Pintar, having fun with itchy inchworm and Amber Lamb, reviewing “Ii” and the colors, singing songs and saying poetry.

Of course in between that all, we brought out the favorite book bag and had snack time – yummy tummy!

By 11 o’clock, AbiNoelle had completed Day One and it was play time……..WHAT! Oh no – play time? And then came the tears….”But mommy, will I ever have kindergarten again? What about my pencil? I didn’t use that today? We didn’t play with the play dough! I want to do what’s in that drawer too! Will I ever see Mrs. Wasser and Mrs. Pintar again?” You know, you try to be very prepared for Day One; however, I failed miserably. I wasn’t prepared for the sadness, the disappointment of it being all over. Thankfully, AbiNoelle finally understood that kindergarten would come again tomorrow and lunch time was coming soon too (food is always a good impromptu distraction!) And so, for now, the schoolroom is closed and we count Day One as a great success!