School Days

School Days

So this spring we stepped up the home "school" a notch, and had regular school time with the big girls, largely while Clara was sleeping but sometimes she got to participate! She is down to one nap a day now, though, so I am trying to figure out how to include her in the "school" part of the day! We are almost done with our kindergarten curriculum (My Father's World, for those who are interested), and have decided to officially homeschool Lily next year rather than send her to public kindergarten.

However, our local public schools have a three week summer orientation for incoming kindergarteners, so since Lily was really wanting to "go to school with a teacher what is not Mama, and ride the bus", we decided to send her to the orientation. So far she loves it, but is utterly exhausted - it's full day K here - and by the 3rd day she was melting down every time she got in the car at the end of the day. A couple of the days she actually fell asleep during their rest time, but by last Thursday she was begging to not go to school, but to put her pajamas back on and go back to bed! One more week! I think it's been a good experience for her - she has learned to navigate the playground with "much bigger boys, like 1st graders" chasing her, buying her lunch in the cafeteria, and taking care of her lunch and snacks in her back-pack. Noelle and Clara have somewhat adjusted to playing with each other kindly rather than relying on their big sister/constant entertainment, and I have enjoyed 1) being forced to get everyone up and out of the house early (no bus for summer school), and 2) focusing more on my little girls while Lily has been gone.

Next year we plan to use Sonlight's kindergarten curriculum, and while I plan on year-round school for our family, this summer is turning out to be largely extra-curricular "school"! Besides Lily's 3 weeks of kindergarten, both Lily and Noelle will attend Vacation Bible School, then we all are going to Michigan for Family Camp at Cedar Campus, then 2 weeks of swimming lessons, then it will be August with TWO weddings and LOTS of traveling across the country to Dallas and California/Colorado/Wyoming!