Grade 4, Lesson 1, Day 1 ~ Let the School Year Begin!

Recap: we are using Oak Meadow 4th Grade this year. We are tweaking the music, adding in physical education, and augmenting subjects as the boys express interest.

We woke up bright and early enough, ate breakfast, dressed, and did a few simple chores. The boys were eager to get into the "classroom" aka an area of the family room that is set up with a large desk and bookcases. All week they had been making school references which was actually starting to drive me crazy. J-Baby in particular was talking about his "long" walk to school and the "cafeteria" lunches, and when Papa asked if "the teacher" was going to ring a bell to start the day T-Guy told him that "the teacher" wouldn't even wake up until the bell rang. Yeah, they've got me pegged.

In addition to using Oak Meadow I am loosely adapting Sue Patrick's Workbox System to help the boys work independently on certain tasks and to stay organized, so I was introducing both the Oak Meadow program and the workbox system to the boys. We got through the main portion of our first day in about 3 hours. Of course, there was little independent work as I had to explain each box to the boys.

I had read that we might want to divide the main OM subjects and work on one per day, so Monday was math day. While I suppose it works in theory, for now it feels clumsy. The lesson itself mentions working on several days. The lesson seems to be cut short if we work on it one day and leave it for a week. On the other hand, working every subject everyday might seem tedious and very like traditional school. I'm not exactly sure what to do; I am still accustomed to the Waldorf method's main lesson blocks. Other ways of organizing the material feels alien to me.