Okay, I'll be completely honest. We have been all but limping to the finish line of our school year. I've tried to take comfort by reminding myself that the teachers and kids (and their parents) in public school are facing very similar feelings and that we're all going to make it and it's going to be just fine. We're making the most of things - here are just a few highlights from our end of year adventures!
Also, I've been telling myself that baby girl is coming halfway through summer but I recently realized that June isn't halfway through summer, it's the very beginning of Summer! We would really only have two weeks of summer if we school all the way through the end of May - so I'm calling it and we are ending this week (a week early)! Hooray for giving ourselves an extra week of summer and for filling our last couple of weeks full of some fun things in addition to our regular coursework and home-activities.
Hikes.
We've been going on a hike every week this whole spring. Our hikes started out with bigger, longer hikes and have slowly turned into "nature walks" as I've gotten further and further into this pregnancy. But it's been great to be out in nature and in the sunshine. (My kids will always say that they love "nature" and it makes me laugh.) One week my friend Tami came with us, and the kids enjoyed having her along with us. We hiked a paved trail, threw rocks into a river, and just enjoyed the sunshine. You were supposed to be able to walk down to the river onto a dripping rock path, but it's been such a rainy spring that the river was really high!
Bear Unit
Our last unit for the year was on Bears. We learned about the 8 different types of bears, where they live, what they eat, etc... We even went to Cabella's to look at all of their stuffed bears there. To finish our unit, the kids got to watch a movie with a bear in it (Brother Bear) and we took the kids out to eat at Black Bear Diner for an End of School celebration.
Bean Museum
For our final field trip of the year we went to the Bean Museum at BYU. There were several bear exhibits (see above about Bear Unit, ha) - plus several "Big Cat" exhibits which are basically Lydia's #1 favorite animal right not. (All big cats are included: leopard, cheetah, lion, jaguar, puma, etc...)
We love when David gets to join us on our adventures. He's such a huge support to our schooling efforts and these kids adore him. I wish that we could co-teach all day every day, but mostly just because I like to be with him.
This year has been really wonderful. Just a really good fit for our family and Lydia has really excelled. I'm grateful that we took the big leap to do this because it's been such a blessing to us. I feel like we were really able to slow our lives down (which was one of our biggest priorities) and that we were able to nurture our relationships with each other. So many blessings for our little family and now... Hip-hip-hooray for the end of school! Bring on the Summer! (or at least the next few weeks of Summer before baby sister gets here!)
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