Welcome Summer!

Today is the last day of school!

I hadn't actually intended for today to be the last day of school. We still have about 15 days worth of lessons to cover. But it's June. The weather has gotten nice. All the other kids are out of school as of tomorrow. It's been a long, trying, strange, chaotic year. And we're ready.

Also I have enough wiggle room next year to absorb those 15 days.

So tomorrow I will have a 4th grader, a 2nd grader and a 1st grader.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stop it, children. Stop growing up.

Anyway. In honor of the last day of school, I'm posting a 'highlight edition', touching on the ups and downs of our school year. And you can join us! Link up your end-of-school post and share how your year went. Just remember to link back here.

This year...

We started out in Las Vegas with 2 extra kindergartners and ended in California with just us. Boo.

My kindergartner read through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. She is the sixth child I've taught to read with that book and it's now missing it's back cover and several pages. I'm going to have to buy a new one for my next round of kids. She worked through half of Saxon 1 and most of Math U See Primer. She grew 4 inches and lost her first tooth. She colored over 100 Bible pages.

My 1st grader worked through all of A Beka's Language 1 and about 1/3 of English for the Thoughtful Child. He mastered spelling with Big IQ Kids. He finished all but 15 lessons of A Beka Arithmetic 1. He cut his hair short. He got his own room. He read his first chapter book and scored his first soccer goal.

My 3rd grader nearly completed Rod and Staff Grammar 3 and Saxon Math 3. She read Mr. Popper's Penguins, The Saturdays, and The Princess and the Goblin. This is a great accomplishment because while she loves books read to her, she has a lot of trouble reading silently to herself. She overcame the challenge of moving away from her friends and making new ones. She became a tween.

Together we dove into early American history, learning about Pilgrims, Pocahontas and John Smith. We ate hard tack and made a model Jamestown fort. We built a model of the Netherlands and flooded it like the Sea Beggar's did. We did all the experiments in Adventures with Atoms and Molecules. We memorized Latin verbs, The Doxology, The Pater Noster, The Preamble to the Constitution, Psalm 23, 5 other Bible verses, 7 poems and the books of the Bible up to Lamentations.

We read A.A. Milne's poetry (both books), A Little Princess, Secret of the Andes, Caddie Woodlawn and Pilgrim's Progress.

We moved, unexpectedly, in the middle of the year and have only just (I think) gotten our feet back under us. We grew closer as a family and stronger in our faith as we learned that God is truly with us always. We were unaccountably blessed by all the wonderful people we've met here.

It was a good year.

Now it's your turn! Tell us about your year, whether you homeschool or not. Post a link to your blog, remember to link back, or just leave a comment if you don't blog.