First Day of School!

We started "tiptoeing" back into school during the third week of July. We just did math the first week, and then added another subject or two the next week. I needed a transition to get back into the groove. We "officially" started full school on August 1. We celebrated with our second annual trip to Daylight Donuts for breakfast!

It is amazing to me that this is our sixth year of homeschooling. It is also my first year to have four official students! We are studying the second half of American History this year, which I am really looking forward to! We continue to use Sonlight as our core for history and literature. We are studying animals in science. This is my first year to use Apologia, so we will see how it goes. Isaac and Bailey are using Winston Grammar and Writing with Ease, and the oldest three are using All About Spelling, which I really like. Everyone but Bailey is sticking with Math U See. I am experimenting with Teaching Textbooks for her this year. It is done completely on the computer, with very little help from me. I am secretly hoping it goes well, so that I can move more of them to it next year. We started the year using the Explorer's Bible study for Bible for Isaac and Bailey. I tried really hard to like it, but we ditched it last week. I really liked the lower level that we used last year, but they did not seem to be getting much out of this level. For now, they are reading through the book of Mark, and I am writing out some simple questions for them to answer. We will see how that goes!

Anna Grace is in Kindergarten this year. We are working through the book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, and she loves it! We are half way through it now, and she is excited about reading. She does math and handwriting (when her arm is not broken), and listens in on science and history.

I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to teach the children at home. It is not something that I would have envisioned myself doing fifteen years ago, but I love it! There are benefits that I could never have imagined when I started. That does not mean that everyday is perfect. My house is never completely clean, my laundry is rarely finished, and I am not always as patient as I would like to be, but it is a great lifestyle for us!