May Homeschool

We had a really really fantastic May Homeschool month. The end of school is full of excitement and activities and also feet dragging to the finish line when they'd rather be playing outside. We loved the different activities, we finished strong, and  we are so happy to have another year in the books. 

Painting. 

Catching Austin reading for no other reason than he wants to is one of my biggest joys. 

I taught Lydia's mentor co-op how to make quillows and it was a huge hit. Also, one of the biggest successes of the year was watching Lydia learn how to crochet and having her get really really good at it. 

Lydia participated in the BizTown program where she gathered with a group of kids to learn about businesses and finances and then went to a big simulation in Salt Lake where she got to run a business (she was a "manager at ChikFilA"). It was a good experience for her! 

Austin building the "tallest tower in the world!" Plus a map to one of our favorite spring field trips: Mehraban Wetland Park. 

We love coming here and over the past couple of years we have taken our travel watercolors to let the kids do some nature painting. It's such a fun activity and we had a really nice group this year. 

Crazy hair Day at Coop: 

Plus some more Coop fun. As a year-end review, I can say that we are really really happy with our SPARK Cooperative year. There were some bumps along the way, but we made some good friends and I think that it was definitely a benefit to our homeschool schedule. Somehow joining as a "maybe we will try this out" turned into me being a co-director of the entire thing, but in a lot of ways that has been good because I've been able to help craft it into something that we will want to stay a part of. My favorite thing about coop, if I'm being honest, is the friend that I made, Dani Martin. I have really enjoyed getting to know her and I'm grateful for the connections that we have made running this coop together. 

I'm pretty sure Lucy snapped these photos of me sitting at the homeschool table working with Austin. I love our little homeschool room and am really happy to have this small space to center our homeschool in. 

I've been teaching sewing lessons to Ava Myntti all year and this was her final project. It's incredible and I'm so so proud of her! What a beautiful dress and a fantastic sewing experience for her. Lucy particularly likes Ava and is always looking forward to her sewing lesson each week. 

This "Good and Beautiful" bookshelf is one of my favorites in our house. I love that my kids can come over here and pick a book that I KNOW will have uplifting values and good storylines. I snapped this picture right before I took the kids to the TGTB store to buy more books, this year they were having a sale and we almost doubled our TGTB library. It makes me so happy. Also popcicles for the last day of Lucy's music class. 

We did a final science project because we've been learning about moons and phases of the moon. They boys loved it. 

Weather is finally warm enough to start Kayaking for the summer! I'm so excited and hope to Kayak a LOT this summer. 

Last day of Lydia's Mentor Coop - what a truly great group of kids. 

The kids talked me into letting them have a "lemonade stand" so that they could save money for Lagoon. I told them that we could do ONE a year (minus all the Market Mondays of the summer) and this is the perfect time.  The other kids are just getting home from school, everyone is excited about summer, but not a lot of people are doing stands yet. 

And finally our "End of School Celebrations". Starting the day with our "end of school cones", having a read-a-thon, and ending with a Mario Party. It was a great day. 

(I had to add in this picture of the first time we did back to school cones - plus a little about the german tradition of school cones. I love to compare and see how big those kids have gotten and love that this little tradition has become so special in our house. 

I filled the cones with little summer treats and toys and they were so happy! 

The read-a-thon and Mario Party conbination made for a great day celebrating the end of the school year. 

I usually try to take this last May Post to write a little about my feeligns of homeschool. This year I am just feeling grateful. So incredibly grateful. At different points in our homschool experience I've spend a lot of time wondering if we are really doing the right thing. But my heartfelt prayers were answered as I went to the homeschool retreat in March. Every fear, every "maybe we should", every uncertainty was filled with an overwhelming sense of rightness. We are right where we are supposed to be. Our children are growing into the children that are confident, smart, kind, and faithful. I get to spend these precious years with them and already they are flying by way too fast. Homeschool is a gift. I hope that it is a gift to my children, but it absolutely is a gift to me. 

My house is not always clean. I am not always as patient as I should be. We don't always have time for all thet things that I want to do. 

But we get to live and work alongside each other in this house. I have grown as a mother and love to teach my children. We have time for the things that matter most, and we are working on all the rest. 

I love these kiddos and am so happy to be their mother. I am so proud of each one of them. 

Now, on to summer!