Holy Guacamole! I'm noticing that our last post was in October! :) Apparently, I need to be a little more intentional with our blogging learning journal, eh? Actually, I just need to teach the older kids how to enter new posts since I'm sure they would welcome the opportunity.
Well, the school year is winding down. We're down to finishing up just a few courses, but we are shooting to be completely finished by next Friday. We are all very ready for a nice, long summer break.
The kids have done very well this year- no doubt at least a smidge of learning occurred. :) However, as always, it remains that the children learn best by themselves. No matter how much I try to spoon feed them, their individual interests still fuel their knowledge like nothing else......
For Samantha, it's art- drawing anything and everything...especially horses and fairies. She's also developed a deep and abiding love for all things Star Wars. She's even made her own Star Wars book.
For Tori, it's birds. She finally got her own parakeet...after some grueling research and devouring about 30 library books on pet birds. She is fascinated by birds and bird watching. She was in tears the other night when she thought a momma killdeer was going to abandon her nest after a certain little 2 year old boy picked up one of the eggs. However, all was set right with the world the following morning when she observed the momma back with the eggs.
Hailey remains infatuated with paper dolls. She just loves them. She is constantly making her own dolls, her own clothes, her own furniture. Good old fashioned fun. She also loves reading non-fiction books about animals. She truly does have a deep knowledge of animals and still thinks that she might want to be a vet someday.
For Noah, just a general 'all things boy' description- trucks, tractors, swords, cowboys/Indians, sharks, dinosaurs...you name it. He's taken a liking to the Billy and Blaze book series as well, which has been fun to watch.
Gracie remains the affectionate little momma and she can usually be found either playing with her baby dolls or talking Noah and/or Joe into playing house with her.
Joseph Timothy has such an affection for Thomas the Train Engine that I'm starting to worry if it's healthy. :) I picked up a couple of little Thomas engines at garage sales this Spring and he is seldom found without them. He's also discovered the joys of Buzz Lightyear and Woody the Sheriff from the Toy Story movies. However, his favorite movie is still Dumbo. No idea why, he just LOVES Dumbo.
We plan to spend the summer with some occasional math review and lots and lots of reading. I am really pumped about getting the plans laid out for next year. I plan to implement ideas from Elizabeth Foss's Serendipity website for much of our schooling next year. We will continue with a literature based approach, only much richer and deeper than this year. Should be a fun summer of planning. It will be interesting to see if I can manage to get a fraction of the ideas out of my head and down onto paper!
