Back to School~Family Fun Night

Last Friday, for our Family Fun Night, we had Back to School Night!  I told everyone I wanted to have my favorite, lunchroom cafeteria meal for dinner...Baked Potatoes with Chili and Cheese on top!  So Yummy!  I used to love it when that was on the menu in high school!  I would load my tray up with as much chili as it would hold! (sometimes until it was overflowing)  I LOVED it!  

After dinner, we sat around and took turns "picking" highlighters, notebooks, pencils and lots of goodies that we brought back from the states.  Josh usually goes with black or blue things, Elisabeth red or pink, and Brenna is always green. 

After our school supply shopping in our living room :o)  We had a school meeting.  Everyone was allowed to bring their ideas of how school can run more efficiently.  This is our 4th year to do ACE and every year we tweak things just a bit to make things run smoothly.

Here's some of our ideas:
~We're going to try a 4 day work week.  (Monday is the day Patrick takes off, so the kids really want to try to have that day off with him.  Saturday is our day where we prepare for having services in our home, so it's not feasible to do school that day.  We'll see how this works and we'll re-evaluate in a couple of months.)
~Josh thinks it would be good if once a month I randomly pick questions from their previous tests and see if they are able to pass an oral quiz.  This will cause them to want remember what they're learning.  (Josh is really wanting to do well on his ACT's this summer, so he feels this can help him.)  If they do well on these quizzes, we'll have some sort of reward in place.
~We're going to try and set the timer again this year for each subject.  I have one child who wants to speed through each subject and be done waaay too early, then I have another that if we're not careful, will still be doing school at 7pm.  So, each subject will take 45 minutes.  If they get done early, they are to review that subject and study it until the timer goes off.  If they still have some left to do and the timer has went off, then that will be homework.  But, there will be no school after dinner.
~We're going to try and stick to more of a schedule with breakfast and lunch.  That way everyone will know what time they need to head to the table for a break time with food and family.

This year Josh will be in 11th grade, Elisabeth in 9th, and Brenna in 8th.  I have some preschool activities ready for Silas and Callie.  They're going to need to keep busy and out of the way of the older 3, so this part always gets a little tricky.  I've put a box together of "Table Time" activities that they will do while I need to be in the kitchen.  (We'll bring their little table into the kitchen with me.)
We're looking forward to a great year!