School Report

We've just begun a new school year and I'm so excited! (We school year-round and tend to begin our year sometime in July.) I love change, but I also love starting new books, so I love the beginning of a school year.

This year, Elena and Maya are in 2nd grade and Isaac and Chloe are in 1st grade. This is our third year using Ambleside Online curriculum and we are all thoroughly enjoying this literature-based education, especially me. I was reading an article recently about homeschool drop-outs, meaning families who quit homeschooling. Parents tend to pull their kids out of public school because the kids are unhappy, but families generally quit homeschooling because the parents (read: mom) is unhappy. I was questioning myself the other day, wondering if I'd made the right decision by choosing curriculum that I love. But the truth is, if I'm not enjoying it, that attitude will cross over to my kids. Thus the reason families stop homeschooling. "When mom ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." (Of course it helps that I haven't heard any complaining or grumbling over the way we're learning.)

For our first term, we're reading The Litte Duke, A Child's History of the World, Leif the Lucky, Heidi and the poetry of Walter de la Mare. We're studying Van Gogh, Renoir, and Frans Lanting. We're also learning about composers: Beethoven, and Rossini. We're finishing up Big Truths for Little Kids as our Bible study and Kyle is still doing Math U See with the kids in the evenings.

Now that VBS is over, we'll be working hard for the next 6 weeks of summer. We're all looking forward to an early fall break in September, when we'll be taking a trip to Colorado.