Friday, April 5, 2013

Countdown

Ah, I thought I would have written more this school year than I did, but we're making it through the year without any lasting hitches.  Even though my dreamy picture of what our homeschool should look like is just that, a dreamy picture, we still have accomplished a lot.  We now have 185 hours left of school this year and I only have one true regret.  I forgot to get good pictures taken of the kids last fall.  I do have plenty of snap shots and I will grab a few good ones this weekend I think so we're not in a total loss.  We got our annual family pics on Father's Day and got some individuals then too, so we're not picture-less.
Watching my kids grow and learn has been very rewarding even in their worst behavior moments.  My baby boy has gained almost 15 pounds this year and I know he has grown at least 3 inches too.  I'm just amazed when I look at him in bed and he takes almost the whole twin bed.  Good bye 5# 5oz baby boy!  At least he still has a tender heart and gentle spirit.  My teeny girl is still teeny, her most of her kindergarten friends are bigger than she is as a 2nd grader.  Its okay and she actually has grown too.  Her shoe size seems to stay the same for a long time and then BOOM!  They're all too small.  I bought cowboy boots intentionally too big at the beginning of the year and now she cant squeeze into them.  Growing, growing, growing!
This school year I picked out our dream curriculum from various publishers.  I am discovering that not all of it is their dream curriculum but mine.  I have started to let them review things with me and we have chosen a new science curriculum for next year from Apologia (I think).  The kids don't like sharing a text book and fight over it, so we're going to split up and learn different things this year.  Now Answers in Genesis has been fantastic for me.  I love reading the book, but the kids didn't care for the presentation for their reading.  Both are above average readers and they still didn't care for the text.  Some families read the lessons out loud and I don't do that with all subjects because the kids retain more when they read the chapters.  Science is one of my favorite subjects so I would rather change up curriculum to find what will instill a love for science to my kids.  The rest of the subjects I think we're sticking with the same thing we used this year.
I knew that splitting up the curriculum was coming anyway because I'm getting close to having a middle-schooler.  Agghhhhhhh!  I know I've told them that my job as a parent is to equip my children to leave my home and be successful adults ... I don't know if I like that now.  No, we're really not that close to graduation, but as fast as these few years have flown by, I bet the rest goes faster.  I will keep them close to my heart while I can.
So I'm very random in thought just like I'm random in our school day.  We have some things that are regular and we are doing well with academics, but as no person is perfect, no school is perfect.  We are going to be done by mid-May and my kids will go on to the next grade with flying colors.  3rd and 5th grade.  That seems impossible.

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