End of Year Homeschool - May

 Hooray! We made it through the homeschool year. I'm so incredibly grateful for the ability and opportunity to school at home this year. These kids weren't forced to wear masks for hours and hours every day and they weren't affected by teacher or costudent quarantines. A lot of our regular homeschooling did have to be put on hold: parks, field trips, hikes, museums, and organized sports - but we were able to still facilitate many fun things like holiday class parties, co-op rotations, and our science fair. Even though the year looked a little different than normal the kids still thrived. They are a little stronger and a little more confident. They know a little more, have been exposed to more of the good and beautiful things the world has to offer, and have read a LOT more books.  

Here are our last learning logs for the year: 

Austin: We have had a great year and are so excited for summer. This week Austin finished all of his coursework for the year and is planning to continue to work on handwriting over the summer. He had his last class with his online speech teacher, who has been hugely impactful to him this year.  He worked incredibly hard to improve his speech, articulation, and understandability. We are grateful for the services through MyTech that allow him to receive the help he needs while receiving the best education for him at home. He says that the thing he is most grateful for over the past year is "that we've had so much fun doing our homeschool work". His favorite thing to study this year was math because he enjoyed the way it made sense with his brain (and "it was easier" he said). 

Lydia: What a great year this has been for Lydia. Our last week of school was made up of her planning a pet shop floor plan using area and perimeter for each animal area (math), working to finish her LA coursebook and reading all the new books from her birthday last week (LA), finishing our Unit about plants and planting our garden (Science), building with gears, batteries, and lights that connect to legos to create cars that really go (TECH), and reviewing all of the songs that she's learned on the piano this year as she's proudly just finished her piano level (Music/elective). 

 

She has learned and grown in so many areas and I'm proud of her.

When asked what thing she was most grateful for this year, she said "I'm most grateful that so many other people were homeschooling this year and that I've been able to do so much with my friends." Her favorite thing that she's learned about was learning about forest habitats in her science course.

Some of our highlights from this month: 

-We are enjoyed our end-of-year Plant science unit. We've been learning about how plants grow and have a kitchen full of simple experiments including glass jars of dirt and water (analyzing the layers of matter found in the dirt), sprouting dried beans, re-growing carrot tops from cut carrots, and a whole tray full of garden seeds that are finally starting to sprout. Austin picked Sunflowers and Lydia picked Cucumbers and Pumpkins to grow in our garden this year. We also attended the Tulip Festival and stopped to learn about tulips, how they grow, and what makes them special at the USU extension there.

-Lydia and Austin finished up their neighborhood co-op rotations.  Tuesday Lydia attends a Readers Theater rotation where she practices and performs a small play with her peers, each person reading a part. Thursday she attends a PE rotation where they have been working on gymnastics and are just starting an outdoor track/running unit. Lydia enjoys being with her peers and we feel it is such a valuable addition to her homeschooling coursework. Austin attends the PE rotation on Tuesday and a STEM/TECH class at our house on Thursday. It's been a great opportunity for him as well.

To finish things off, Andrea Wardell hosted a talent show. Lydia played a piano piece, Austin prepared a poem but instead decided to show how long he could do a handstand for. She insisted that moms participate, too, so I recited the first two verses of The Living Christ.

-"Hike a Week" at Jungle Trail with the Wards. 

-The season when spring is in full force and summer is right around the corner. I often find my door open and kids hanging out in the front between out houses and I kind of love it. (But dont' tell them, because I really do want them to shut the front door.)

END OF SCHOOL

Toward the beginning of the school year, Lydia read an article in The Friend about a "back to school" tradition from Germany about making "School Cones". The kids receive a giant decorated cone filled with treats and school supplies. She asked if we could do it and I said that maybe we could do it as an end of school tradition. She didn't forget and neither did I. We made the cones together, then I took them and filled them with treats and some fun toys for summer to celebrate our very last day of school!

We celebrated the last day of school/book work the week before the rest of the schools got out (one of my favorite things about homeschool, ha, do I say that about everything?). Then that bonus week was spent doing "End of School Celebrations". This year that included swimming lessons, a Read a Thon, and a trip to Lagoon. 

For our ReadAThon, we did a lot of reading as a family. We finished our "Swiss Family Robinson" read aloud and then we watched the old movie. We snuggled and laughed and read together. We also invited some of our neighborhood friends to join in and they came over in the afternoon for some reading together and then individually. It went really great! More than anything I hope that these kids' hearts get filled with traditions and belonging and being loved. 

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End of School Lagoon Day

Jenna watched our kids and we took Camille with us - which was a great trade for us. We had such a fun time together and even got to meet up with the Wards and do Lagoon with them, too. The kids had earned money at a Lemonade/Cotton Candy stand so they had money to do games and buy toys/treats and they were each carefully particular about what they were going to spend their money on. It was such a great day!

Happy End of Homeschool! Summer seems so short at a brief 10ish weeks, but we are going to make the very most of it. I'm already starting to plan some things for our next year studies and although I'm very excited, I'm also looking forward to this magical time of sunshine, less bookwook, and togetherness. 

Homeschool Adventures

I wanted to do a unit study about Utah to follow along with the Utah State standards for 1st grade and had been brainstorming how I wanted to do it for quite a while. I knew I wanted to have the unit revolve around a map of Utah but I wasn't sure how to fit everything together. When I had the thought to make a giant map of Utah to hang on our wall and use throughout several Unit studies I got so excited and it has been working so well for us! So far we have learned about the location of Utah on a map (on the world and in the United States), the symbols and landmarks of Utah, Utah Temples, Promontory Point (and the Transcontinental Railroad), and most recently the different habitats in Utah (Simplified into Wetlands, Forests, and Deserts). After learning about the three different habitats, I let Lydia (and Austin) pick an animal to research. They each thought of three questions that they wanted to know about their chosen animal and then together we found the answers. It was so fun and interesting and... I just love homeschool.

We've been building a lot. 

If I had to choose one thing that was my very very favorite thing about homeschooling my kids it might be our slow mornings in my bed. The kids wake up about seven and come crawl into bed with me until about seven-thirty. Sometimes we sleep, sometimes we just snuggle. Oftentimes after I'm ready to really wake up, we read books together until we get hungry enough to force us to stop and go downstairs for breakfast. Our routine has slowly been pushed back later and later to make space for this unhurried portion of our morning but you know what? I'm just fine with that. I will treasure these slow, snuggly mornings for as long as I can have them. 

We hold our Poetry Treat Time (aka Poetry Tea Time for other homeschoolers) every Thursday afternoon. This includes making a special treat to eat, setting out our special teacups and china plates and eating our snack while I read the kids bits of poems and fairy tales. They love it. In truth, Austin loves it most of all. He really enjoys it. He loves helping to make the treat, helping to pour the juice, and eating the snack while listening to a story. This is another special activity that I love about homeschool - with all sorts of benefits and connections that come from the process.

We've been hitting up the Afterschool Art class at the library on Mondays. I want to incorporate more art into our homeschool and this has been a fun and easy way to get one more bit of exposure.  

Reading. My kids have always liked me to read to them. Right now Austin's favorite books for me to read are beginning chapter books called Dragon Masters. I still want to read him picture books, but he begs me to read those instead. For now, I've decided that it's just fine and I am just so happy that he loves to have me read to him. Lydia has taken off in the reading department over the past several months. I can hardly keep up with her! It's been amazing to watch her develop a true love of reading with the skills to back it up. David and I both love to read and so do our parents and so did many of our grandparents - so she comes from a long line of readers, but it's neat to watch her develop the love for herself. 

I love our homeschooling life. It's not always perfect but it certainly has more good days than bad days. My kids are thriving and so am I. These are just a few tiny snippets of our homeschool adventures - most of the time we are too focused on what we are doing to take any pictures at all (which is how I want it). I want my kids to be engaged in what they are doing without worrying about capturing the moments in order to post about them later - so I try to live by that myself. There are so many things that I'll never record and so they will be lost with the passage of time. But I like the analogy that my Dad often uses about building a wall or a building out of bricks. You might not remember each and every brick, but each hour- each day- you are laying bricks that will eventually turn into something bigger and more beautiful than you can imagine.