After 180 days of official learning, our school year has come to an end. This has been a tough year in many ways, with puberty knocking at our door unceremoniously. It has also been a tremendous year of growth and amazing achievements.
Our family celebrating the end of another homeschool year
If we take the good that comes our way, we might as well take the bad as well, and work with it. Through it all, we have seen God’s hand at work, guiding our steps, giving us wisdom, and maturing our children so they can become adults who make good decisions.
Now I need to finish filling out some paperwork for our umbrella school – nothing much, just the attendance record and the list of curricula for next year. I have already registered for next year when we were there in March, for the annual testing.
I feel we really need this summer vacation. June is filled with camps. July looks empty right now and I will make sure it stays that way. I plan to take the kids to the pool and not much else.
We have a reading list from Mensa for Kids and we will slowly work out way through it. The kids love reading independently. They also still like it when I read out loud to them. I still do, on days when I am not exhausted.
We also plan to finish volume 4 of Story of the World so that we can begin again with volume 1 in the fall. They are so curious about the two World Wars. Besides, they genuinely enjoy the stories in this history curriculum.
We have decided not to take piano lessons as long as they practice once a week. They enjoy playing the piano, so that will not be hard to enforce. However, violin is another story altogether.
Our son needs to transition to a full size violin, which we purchased in March. They both need to prepare to audition for the youth symphony again in the fall. They do not have to advance to the next level orchestra, but it would be nice, because I think they have developed quite a bit this year.
We will want to have violin lessons almost every week and practice on most days in order to continue the momentum we have created.
Of course, our devotional happens every day and that falls under Religion or Bible. We are working through a series of Bible studies for children from It Is Written. A tad boring for them in format, but it sparks lots of conversations which spice things up a bit.
So we will not be totally idle. Learning never stops. However, there is no stress in terms of covering 4-5 subjects or instruments every day. Hurray for summer vacay!
