Back to school

Mark's school year has officially started.  His students came to school on August 20th. I like to try and surprise him with something fun at the start of his school year.  This time around I picked up some Panera Bagels and a loaf of his favorite Tomato-Basil bread to use for sandwiches. Before he left for the day Jared and Lydia made sure to give him a Kissing Hand and get one back in return. I checked out a bunch of back to school books from the library to read with Jared before he goes to preschool and that one has been a favorite. It's such a sweet story and I love getting Kissing Hands from Jared and Lydia.
The first few days of school are always sort of boring because you are not teaching much.  Just focusing on classroom/school procedure.  This semester he is teaching 7th grade, which is US History from Reconstruction (1865) through present day.  In January he will add two classes of 8th grade American Government to his schedule and go down to one 7th grade class.  It looks like he will be going on two field trips in September.  One is with his 7th graders on an overnight building unity campout and the other will be with the 8th grade students, "Paddling down the Potomac" (!!! ).  How cools that? They literally paddle canoes down the Potomac and stop off at historic sites because, its Virginia and you can. Virginia has to be one of the best places to teach US History/American Government.  He is very excited about the 8th grade field trip. Not so much about 7th grade but it will be fine.
Mark says diversity wise his school is fairly similar to Colorado but the students do seem to be a little stronger academically and behaviorally so that is nice.  He had open house a week ago and felt like parent support was stronger which is a plus. He is very excited about the other teachers he is working with and his admin which is really great.  There is a group of teachers that play basketball Fridays after school which he is happy to participate in.  So far the year is off to a great start. I wish the school day were a little different. He doesn't start until 9:00 (he leaves by 8:00) so school doesn't get out till 4:00 which seems so late to me.  In Colorado he was typically home by 4:00 or 4:15 but now it will be closer to 4:40.  Just seems so late even though I know most jobs require people to work much later.

Jared is super excited about preschool.  There is a Parent's night this Thursday and he has Open House Friday morning then school starts Tuesday after Labor Day.  We made a countdown chain yesterday and the first thing he did today was run downstairs to pull off the first link.  It is fun that he is so excited to go. We have ben doing lots of back to school activities for learning time. His favorite is our school bus activity.  We did a simpler version last year.  I have him roll a pari of dice, then make an addition equation out of it. So if he rolls a 4 and 5 he writes out 4 + 5 = then adds (counts) them up.  We then put that many "Students" (M & M's) on the bus.  We have also been working very hard on our word families.  Jared and I were not really getting anywhere with "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons" so I have decided to try something else.  He completely loves doing word families.  It's so funny.  The other day I got them out and he said "thank you for teaching me word families, I love them, they are so awesome!" It was adorable. He gets really excited each time we do them.  When we combines them with the begging sound and reads the word he is so pleased with himself.  We also got a ton of sight books from Mark's sister Cathryn and we read 2 at the end of each learning time. He was already very good at sounding out letters so now we are just working on him reading them.  It's been fun to see him so excited about reading. I love it.

He really is this excited about word families.  I told him to show me how word families make him feel and this is what I got!

And we have had fun playing.  We've gone to parks and splash parks and enjoyed a lot of family walks.  Jared and Lydia have been really into camping ever since we went and one day asked me for some pillow cases that they could use as sleeping bags.  Pretty clever.

 Here they are sleeping under the stars.  We make lots of "tents" but not this time. 

They spend a lot of time being pirates and capturing Fairies (thanks to the "Pirate Fairy" a cute Tinkerbell movie, Jared for sure wants to be a Pirate for Halloween) and pretending they are deer, puppies, and kitties.  Jared and Lydia have become really good buddies in the last 3 months or so. They play really well together a majority of the time and enjoy sharing a room. I do not always enjoy them sharing a room as they keep each other up at night but it is what it is.  There are some benefits as well.  They have both been early risers all their lives and now they can hang out with each other and read books together until their alarm goes off and they can come out of the room.  They definitely need space every now and then and bug each other plenty but they really are good buddies.

We have also been trying out new pancakes.  We have them each Sunday for breakfast.  I was getting really tired of our standard chocolate chip ones and have been looking up new recipes.  This week we tried cinnamon swirl pancakes and they were amazing. I personally love IHOP and am always wiling to go, but Mark is not. I had their Cinn-A-Stix pancakes a long time ago and have been meaning to make them ever since.  These were a little different but just as amazing. They are everyones favorites so far. I am excited to try some new pumpkin ones as fall gets closer.