Firsts

Last week was a week of several FIRSTS for our kids.

Wednesday was Matthew's FIRST day of FIRST grade:

I will sometimes have things for Claire to do this year, too, so we made her a sign, too. =)

Here is our first-grade curriculum:

We are having a great time so far.

I bought a small dry-erase board this year and Matthew loves it.  Here he is writing his hypothesis for an experiment on which items a magnet will stick to:

Here, Matthew is counting to 100 and clapping on all the 'fives' and patting his head on all the 'tens.'  Claire is trying, too. =)

Reading time:

For the last few days, Claire has been occupying herself quite nicely like this:

The next FIRST...On Friday, Claire went in the toilet at our house for the FIRST time.  She has been sitting on the toilet quite a bit, but never goes - even with the promise of candy, one of her loves.  On Friday, I brought the candy INTO the bathroom (thanks for the idea, Kelly Ruhl!) and basically waved some chocolate chips in front of her face.  Boom - she went.  So far she still hasn't gone again, but we're getting closer!

On Saturday, Matthew learned how to ride his bike without training wheels for the FIRST time.  We had tried it at the end of last summer, but to no avail.  On Saturday, he picked it up in about 10 minutes!  And the next evening, he figured out how to mount and get going by himself.

Going...

Going...

Gone!

School is going great this second week, too.  We are both learning a lot.  (Did you know that a cricket hears through his knees and that snakes are deaf??)  I am also starting to 'nest' and am tackling lots of small projects around the house.  Thankfully, I have had a fresh dose of energy lately, so there's no stopping me...at least for now!  I hope your family's first days of school are going great, too!