Ruby Academy

At 9:00 sharp this morning, Ruby Academy began its first day.  Ruby had three 15-minute quick-start assignments in geography, grammar and spelling. At 9:45, she had her creative writing class with Coco, focusing on imagery, while Xanthe and I did piano.  At 10:30, Ruby went to math at school.  Home at 12:00 for lunch before kindergarten and 30 minutes of reading alone.

At 1:00, Ruby sliced and diced veggies for our dinner while I lectured her on the events leading up to World War Two, which is our first three-week unit.  With Anne Frank being our first book, we started in about 1933 with Hitler's rise to power and the gradual losses of freedoms suffered by the Jews in Nazi Germany.  It was an interesting place to start time-wise, because my grandfather was on a mission in The Netherlands from 1931 to 1933, and his journal mentioned Hitler and some of the political events that took place.  Thinking about Opa actually being there made history more real for Ruby.  I won't have her read Sarah's Key, but I did tell her the horrible story of the cupboard and said that, even though it was a fictional story, it underscored the atrocities that actually took place.  Heavy subjects for the first day!  Tomorrow, she'll start reading Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.  I promised her that she would love the book.

Once the stew and the lecture were finished, we went to guitar and were home shortly after the other kids got home from school, right in time for Ari's cello lesson, practicing with Freestone and then running Golda and Ari to ballet.  Since Ruby did her practicing before school, she was free for the rest of the day, except for creative writing homework, reading and her jazz class.  We ate her stew for dinner, and it was delicious.  All in all, it was a fun and exciting first day of school.  It's going to be tricky fitting everything in and staying focused, but there are benefits, too.  Guitar during school hours, time with Ruby at this stage of her life, more attention for the other kids after school hours, and all the things we get to learn.  I'm realizing that we won't have time for some of the extracurricular activities that I want to do, so we'll do them on weekends with the rest of the family. Another plus!  Last night, I had serious reservations about the homeschool thing.  Stage fright?  After a good, successful day, I'm more confident.  There will be hard times, but I'm really grateful for this opportunity.  It was a necessary change, and now everything is in harmony...for now!