Summer School Thoughts
The weather is definitely summer around here. However, school is still in session for us and it looks like we'll be balancing a little book work between beach days and pool days through the coming months. Between having a baby in the Fall and moving in the Winter and two 2-week trips to Italy and America in the Spring, we're hoping that Summer will be a nice balance of steady routine with lots of sun and splashing mixed in. I can't wait to have Ethan home with us all day so we can schedule our time around our family needs and not around the public school bell. His last school day is next Thursday so I guess our summer plans will begin at that point. (11 days away!)
Camryn will continue working on daily math and grammar lessons throughout the summer but everything else is finished up for her. Sloan will continue to make her way around the reading race track program that we started a several months ago. Ethan is so excited about writing in cursive so I'm going to hurry and order him a cursive workbook for the summer. We'll throw in random math games for all of us too. We always get excited about the library summer reading programs and that starts in two weeks. This year I'll have all three kids able to read, read, read, by themselves to earn the program rewards. I love that! About mid July, we're all going to start a Spanish language program that a friend of mine has offered to teach. I'm definitely looking forward to this. She is from Mexico and is fluent in both Spanish and English. Both of her children are bilingual and she's confident that my kids will pick it right up with her teaching us. Yeah! Let's see, what else will we be learning this summer?... oh yes, swimming! Camryn and Ethan are both good swimmers but I think I'll sign them each up for one session of swim class. Sloan is the one that needs it the most. So, she may take a couple of sessions. In fact, I need to call today to see if we can sign up now. Travis has scheduled one week off work in July so we'll learn some geography and take a couple of short road trips during this time off. We'll probably end up splashing on the beaches of Southern Portugal for a couple of days.
Between all of this, I need to sit down and concentrate on our school plans for next fall. I've been reading my Charlotte Mason and Well Trained Mind books over the last couple of month to get me focused and motivated but now I need to work out the details of necessary curriculum purchases and such.
I can't believe that Camryn will be a 6th grader! Yikes. I really had no idea that I'd be homeschooling her for this long when I first decided to experiment with her kindergarten year. I absolutely love following a classical approach and we are looking forward to second year of logic stage learning.
Sloan will be a 2nd grader. I'm going to love this because she's able to read on her own now and over the summer I expect that she'll be more confident about it too. I have some random books and lessons for 2nd grade but I need to pull things off the shelves to see what I need to round it out and have a complete program for her.
Last week, Travis and I had a meeting at the school to request testing for Ethan. They've decided to pick up his case and will start his testing and evaluations at the beginning of the new school year. They have 45 days to complete it so I feel like we need to enroll him for the 3rd grade in order to get the testing we want done and get a clearer picture of his learning abilities, strengths and weaknesses. After that point, we'll see where he's at and decide if we want him to continue with the public school program or not. I just need more information on how to teach him before I commit to homeschooling him again. He's made great improvements in most areas this year but he's still struggling with his reading and math skills. His mind works in ways that I just don't understand how to tap into. I don't think he needs special education but he definitely needs a lot of repetition and I'm so tired of trying to cram information into him when maybe we just need to approach his learning in a unique way for him. It's difficult to explain here, but bottom line, I'm putting a lot of hope and prayer into this testing process. Once we have the results, we'll be able to decide what the best environment is for him.
And that leaves Isaac. He'll keep up with his twice a week speech therapy/early intervention program and regular audiology appointments. Of course, I'll continue my internet reserach on hearing issus and communication techniques, etc. My other summer goal for him is to embrace baby finger foods and the sippy cup. Crawling is about to happen... he's up on all fours with lots of rocking but no forward motion as of yet...
I think I'll post curriculum details in the coming weeks as I attempt to sort out what we've used, what we've liked, what we didn't like, etc. If I put it down here, I won't have to worry about losing paper lists!
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