Last School Year

Sorry to all of you who have been waiting for updates . . . for four months. I'm finally getting around to it. This may be boring to some of you, so if it is too long, just skip to the pictures at the end. But, many of you have asked how our school year went, so I'll give you an idea of what school is like at our house-- not that it won't change as we change; that's part of the beauty of homeschooling.

Lorien was in Kindergarten this year. She learned to read and was so excited when she read the whole book of "Hop on Pop" all by herself! But, on the whole, she's not that interested in reading yet, so we're not pushing it. We went at a comfortable pace this year and are taking a break this summer with periodic reviews.

She loved math and is quite good at it. She's learned about concepts like place value, addition and subtraction, and even the area of a rectangle. She also learned skills like using tally marks and skip counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's.

Bible time or prayer always started out our day. I didn't do as good of a job teaching scripture memory as I should have, but we've worked more on that this summer and I have a better plan for focussing on bible and scripture memory when school starts back up in the fall. But, an essential part of parenting is remembering to teach all the time, wherever we are and whatever we're doing, about the Lord and His ways. God has been gracious to constantly remind me of that and steer me back on track when I forget.

The kids all love being read to. We've read countless shorter books, but some of the longer books we read this year and this summer were: Charlotte's Web, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Heidi, Little House In the Big Woods, Stuart Little, Chatterer the Red Squirrel, and The Little Princess. A couple of these were books on tape that we enjoyed listening to on our way to and from Colorado this summer. I'll save the highlights from that trip for another entry.

The birth of Vala made this school year interesting. But, it was wonderful to be able to take a break and focus on being a family and enjoying our new baby without worrying about school for a while. I was amazed at how much we still got done and how much Lorien learned even though we spent fewer days and a third of the hours doing school than most kids do.

Beren really enjoyed doing pre-school activities this year. He had his own workbooks to do and had so much fun! He's just so eager to learn right now and soaks everything up!

Toward the very end of the year, I had someone give me this tip: have older kids teach the younger ones while you teach a middle child. So, while I taught Beren, Lorien taught Nienna her numbers, and how to sort by color, etc. This worked so well. They both loved it and it is a great way to keep toddlers entertained while you are working one-on-one with another child.

Our two "extra" activities this year were piano lessons and participation in a homeschool co-op. Lorien absolutely loves playing the piano and we have a great teacher who makes lessons and practicing so much fun. I would highly recommend her to everyone, so if anyone is looking for a great piano teacher, contact me for details.

Our homeschool co-op is run by moms who teach 4 different classes to 4 different age groups each Monday afternoon. We cover things that are not as easy for some people to cover at home like group sports in a P.E. class, Music, Art, a C.P.R. course, etc. The kids had a blast and made a lot of new friends.

The thing I loved this year was just being a family and getting to watch my kids learn in a relaxed environment using a curriculum taylored to each child's level and learning style. We would often enjoy a snack while doing our math or practice our Spanish words over lunch. I'm loving this and looking forward to another year starting in August.

Math:

Science:

Daddy reading Chatterer the Red Squirrel: