In A Panic

What am I doing?? I think I am crazy. I was so excited when the UPS man showed up today (do you think everone loves the ups man?) with the box containing our new phonics and spelling books for Grace and Sophia. Just so very excited! We put it on the table and opened it all up all of us very curious about the new books. Then I started taking the products out. Teacher's manuals, letter cards, picture cards, dry erase boards, and so on. Sophia just kept asking how soon we could start. I told her not until Monday. A good decision on my part because it didn't take long for the excitement to wear off for me. One peek into those teachers manuals and I could feel the panic rising in my chest. How am I going to do this? I am not a lesson planner. I am not a read from the book kind of teacher. Heck, I don't even consider myself a teacher at all, the older kids have been learning from a computer for a few years now! I'm not even sure how I am supposed to fit all of this teaching stuff into my already full day. So that is where I am at. Not a good feeling. I managed to look through one whole lesson for Grace this evening. Great, we can get a lesson done on Monday. Now how am I going to find the time to plan the rest of the week for her and Sohpia, too? Oh I know deep down that it will get done and everything will be fine. I am sure after a couple of weeks we will cruise through the lessons like we have been doing them for years. But for now, I can't seem to get rid of this panicky feeling.

Back To School...Kind Of...

So here's the pics of our new homeschool set up. Em and Grace at the wet bar counter with their computers and the other three at the table in the family room. Good thinking on Josh's part to keep that table for that room, huh? It was a good first day or sort of first day. I actually decided at 6:00 that morning that we would start school. As of the night before we were going to start on Monday. But I was up at 6:00 and just couldn't fall asleep so I decided we would just get ready and start. The computers were set up and I figured we could use a couple kind of practice days anyway. But Sophia hasn't started yet. I need to get to Sidney to pick up her teacher manuals from a friend and then get some lesson planning done. Hopefully I will be ready on Monday because she is very impatiently waiting! I did get the older girls caught up on their immunizations...Brooke needed hers to start public school. But while at the clinic I realized that I had completely forgotten about my statements of intent. I have to send them in to the superintendant of schools. I am supposed to have them in to her office two weeks before starting school!! Oops! Need to get those together this weekend and have them ready to mail on Monday. Thankfully we have a great superintendant that shouldn't mind. Of course if someone had a fit we would just add on two weeks of school at the end...I mean really...whatever. So I'm ahead on many things but very very far behind on more things, ha ha. That is just the way it seems to go. It does feel good to be back to schooling though. There is just such a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day when everyone gets their work done.