The Best Family in Town: BOX DAY 2014!

Box Day is a phrase that has been coined by Sonlight Curriculum. It is the day that Fed Ex arrives at your doorstop with at least one box of books to kick off your new homeschool year. For us, Box Day was Thursday February 20^th. What a great day that was!!

To kick off our Box Day adventure, we started by sorting out all of our books, workbooks, school supplies, and any and all papers that were related to the previous year. Since we school year round and take breaks as needed, like for the birth of our newest little one Jacob, our school year starts when we need it to and we take breaks as we need them. This year it starts the first week of March. This year we will be adding a little bit of fun things for Cole in the mix, so we took the time to go through the toys in the boy’s room and pulled out some educational toys that will be great to use for school hours with Cole. We also set up a little “cubby” with some books and toys for Cole. After we got the kitchen area organized and cleaned up, we realized that we needed more paper and pencils so we took a trip to Wal-Mart to get some things and get some storage bins for the books for our old cores.

I forgot to take a BEFORE picture of the kitchen, here is the end results.
I am so excited to have things organized again!

When we got back home from grocery shopping and supply trip it was time to tackle my desk and then the book shelves around the table that we keep all our current school books at. I must admit that as we organized, pulled out our favorite books, and dusted and cleaned, I was getting more and more excited at the idea of opening that beautiful box that was filled with so many new, exciting, and wonderful books.

Messy and ready to be reorganized!

One shelf almost empty and crying out for new books.

The books from last year being packed away.

Organized chaos! HA!

At last we were ready to set things up! YAY! This year John Robert and Ethan will be using Sonight’s Core “D” and begin an introduction to American History. We will also be starting a brief overview of Florida’s history, something that I am excited about. Maybe we can plan a weekend field trip to my favorite Florida city, St. Augustine. This year Maggie will be finishing up her delve into world history by finishing up with Core “H”. I must admit that I was getting really excited as I sorted out all of her school books and looked at the history that was there, specifically with regards to more modern history, from World War II on.

Isn't this beautiful?

Ethan was so excited to open the box this year!

He was even excited about the math book box!

John Robert holding the Love to Learn sticker!

Books, glorious books!!!

Ethan was my main sorter while John Robert "babysat" Cole and Maggie took pictures while snuggling Jacob.

Look at all those glorious books!! YAY!

After sorting all the books, it was time for me to sit down and set up the two new Instructor Guides (IG’s). Of course this is when I get really excited. I get to separate all of the wonderful books into History, Readers, Read Alouds, and Bible and then see how they all relate to each other within the IG. I also adore that the IG has all of the planning done for me. The only person that doesn’t have a “reading” list this year is Ethan since I had almost all of his books already, so I get to organize and make our own reading list and reading guide.

Checking the books off my list.

Sorting, working, and assembling the IG's!

After all the hard work, the new books are up, the old are put away, the bookshelves are clean, Mama’s desk is cleaned, and Cole was happy to help us celebrate!