First Grade with Miss Claudia

 This year Elliot has the best teacher ever- his Aunt Claudia! Claudia did Prenda's homeschool program last year and decided to open a 1-2 grade Prenda microschool this year. 

School started the week we were at the beach. We called it "marine biology," and didn't have to worry about school truancy officers coming after us which was nice. We would have missed the second week as well, but there was a covid incident that shut down the class for a week. 

A boy with his minecraft backpack (holding his minecraft lunchbox) marching into his first day of school. 

We had him wear a mask for the first week just in case he had any lingering sickness depite being all pretty much better by that point.

I love this picture. What an idyllic learning environment. Claudia gets the kids outside as much as possible. 

Claudia is awesome. Elliot has this habit of talking with a "baby voice." He does it a ton, but especially when he is around lots of people. He's hard to understand when he talks like that, and it's also just kind of weird. Claudia came up with this idea to have a code word to remind him to talk with his normal voice so that she woudln't have to keep saying "don't use the baby voice" in front of all his friends. Elliot got to pick the code word. "Poop" and "Pee" were rejected, but "toilet paper" was accepted. I adopted this at home too. People probably get confused about why I interrupt my son by saying "toilet paper" at seemingly random times, but it works well. 

We walk to school every morning and pick up Eva Mae and Brynlee on the way. It is so nice having school start at 8:30, although I do still need to drag Elliot out of bed to get him there on time. That kid is a night own if I've ever seen one. School is Monday-Thursday, 8:30-1:30. 

"kindness is a superpower" day

This was the day they learned about the Mars Rover and got to make their own rovers out of recycled materials

The class store- they earn Prenda bucks and lose them if their cubbies are too messy

We had our first field trip! We combined with two other Prenda classes in the area to have activities in Madera Canyon. There was also a thanksgivingish potluck meal, because why not?

Claudia ran a craft/scavenger hunt station

This one was my favorite. She hid stuffed baby animals around the area. The kids worked in pairs to rescue a baby animal and build it a shelter. 

I tagged along to "chaperone" with Annie and Isaac. I love that I can bring the little kids along. 

Prenda is working really well for Elliot. I love that he gets to move at his own pace with math and reading. I love that he has a small class with some kids who are a grade older than him. I love that they learn while sprawled on couches or soaking up the sun. I love that we get to walk there. And most of all I love that Elliot gets his Aunt as a teacher.