Homeschool and Life Happenings – May 2017

Well, the nutshell is we are on the tail end of everything here. The past week has been a mix of wrapping up testing for each of the kids, finishing a few subjects together with the boys, and letting the girls work through the remaining lessons they have in a few areas. 

Overall, it’s been fairly light the last two weeks for sure. 

Life at Home

We’re headed out on our first camping trip of the year this weekend, so in the middle of everything it’s been craziness trying to get meals planned, everyone packed, and make sure we don’t forget something key. Last time we went to this campground we had one child forget every single piece of clothing. Good times. 

Rick and I have been rather busy too getting things ready for our local swim team to start up. That’s meant a lot of hours behind the scenes for me and trying to organize things so the year goes smoothly. I may also be making lots of notes so next year will be even easier. :) 

One fun thing we were able to do recently was travel to Atlanta with just McKenna for the last Teach Them Diligently conference. Rick wanted to tag along on this one too, but it was so much fun because Carisa and her husband also brought their oldest – and he and McKenna had a blast together. For Rick and I, it was also some much needed time 1:1 with McKenna only. 

Our family is back to volunteering with a local soup kitchen – we usually do it once a month, but had to skip the month of April. The above picture is a rather hilarious look at an incident that happened this past time. We serve lasagna and I have to unwrap the containers (the Costco premade lasagna is fabulous). At one point I kept searching for the knife I was using to cut through the plastic covering and couldn’t find it. About an hour later I heard, “What in the world is this?” and we discovered where the knife had disappeared to. Oops. On the bright side, nothing started on fire – so there’s that. 

The kids are thrilled about one recent purchase my husband made. I stress the last part on WHO MADE THE PURCHASE, because well – noise level, people. There was a great deal on a drum set and the last two weeks have been rather, well, interesting. The boys are having a blast with them. Unfortunately for me, the one place in the house where they can stay at the moment is directly under our bedroom. I sent the above picture to my hubby on the first day when I found his work headphones. And now for lessons…

Part of our month has also seen quite a bit of travel already. We headed to Tennessee to celebrate the wedding of one of our friend’s sons. What does a hamburger have to do with that? Well, we found this AMAZING restaurant while there – burgers that were ridiculously huge (and enough to fill up a growing 12 year old boy). Crazy good. The wedding was amazing too (grins), but the burger lives on in the heart of a certain son. 

Everyone in the house is itching for summer to start officially. Granted, the girls need to complete their work before we are “officially” done, but here’s a look at what each kiddo still has on their plate: 

Kaleb: finish reading 2nd Boxcar Children book

Zachary: finish reading last assigned literature book

McKenna: finish two North Star Geography lessons, about 8 more lessons in Algebra 1, and a few Visual Latin lessons

Laurianna: finish last 4 weeks of Constitutional Literacy, Visual Latin lessons, and a few more projects from Artistic Pursuits Book 1. Her biggest hurdle has been catching up with the things she had to put aside when she was really sick mid-school year. 

Laurianna is probably most frustrated out of everyone because she begins her summer job of lifeguarding soon and feels the pressure of getting things completed, but also wanting free time to enjoy things. That can be a catch 22, eh? We are also sitting down with our local community college in the next few weeks to talk about her taking a few classes in the upcoming year that will be dual credit – YIKES! That means getting her transcript pulled together completely and making sure we have everything lined up. Part of me doesn’t want to acknowledge that we are at this point already, but on the other hand I’m so excited as she starts another phase of her academics.

While the kids may be wrapping up their schoolwork, that means I get to start officially planning for next year – but beside the pool! The pool opens next week and for us that means we will likely start heading there on the gorgeous days – because SUMMER!!

Are you ready for a summer break – or working through?