it's coming down

The school year is over and all the stuff is coming down. I am looking forward to having my house look like a house again and not a school. I envy the lucky ones that have a dedicated school room.

Memorial Day

Pancake breakfast, visit to cemetery, hiking and finding lizards with friends. Not a bad way to spend the day!

Anna and Parker. We are all a little baby hungry here. Well....  almost all.

A big THANK YOU to all the men and women and their families that have sacrificed their lives so that we can enjoy the freedoms that we do. 

book club

Friday the kids had their last book club for the year. At the end of the party we raffled off the pledge that they made earlier in the year. Anna was thrilled to win it!

Closing night

Heroes Quest: Mt. Olympus and the Guardians of the Flame came to a close Monday night. It was a perfect end to an amazing year. Some of the mom's (including me) put on a little skit from Antigone, (a play written by Sophocles) for everyone, the children recited the Declaration of Independence, the older kids performed a song that they wrote, awards and tokens of the year were given, we watched a slide show of the year, and finally the torch was passed from a Roman citizen, to a founding father, on to our heroes!

Our heroes!

the goddesses and Poseiden

Nike (me) and her heroes

the heroes crowned with their victory wreaths and holding their flames (flashlights)

Singing the school song one last time, a very emotional moment

book group heroes

David surprised me with a new dry erase board, markers, and a world's best teacher certificate.

 Isn't he sweet!

 
This year has been unbelievable. I went into it very nervous about homeschooling, but now I can say with my whole heart that this was the best thing I have ever done for my children.  It has been so much fun to watch them learn and grow.  After we got home from our closing celebration Anna came up to me, gave me a great big hug and told me thank you for being willing to homeschool. She said this has been the best school year ever and that she had so much fun learning. She even said...this was a real shocker... that math wasn't even that bad!!!

Now, the plans begin for next year. It's going to be very magical, I can feel it already!

Closing presentations

Alahna made a book that she titled, "Traveling with the Ancients". She took the time period between 500 and 300 B.C. and studied five civilizations. Then wrote and bound her own book. She worked on it for months and it really turned out neat.

Anna made a power point presentation about dogs in ancient Greece, both real and mythological. It took her awhile to find something she was truly excited about, but once she did she worked on it for hours at a time until it was finished. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of her with her project.

Robert has worked on his "book of heroes" throughout the year. In it he drew pictures of all his heroes. The list includes mostly family members, but there are a couple of others like, Jackie Robinson, his ultimate hero right now.  He made his cover at the beginning of the year when he was still learning how to write his name.

The girls and I worked together to make this liberty quilt as we learned all about the American Revolution.

And finally, the whole younger group after all the presentations were done. (The younger group consists of all the elementary age kids; the jr. high and high school kids did their presentations on a different day.)

 

split lip and other fun

click on the picture to see it better.

A couple of weeks ago Robert tripped and hit the fireplace completely splitting his lip right next to the scar from where he split his lip 3 years ago. This time he did a more thorough job and needed to be stitched back up. As always he was an amazing patient. The nurse started to wrap him up in a papoose to hold him down and I told him that really wasn't necessary, he would hold still. The nurse gave me an "are you crazy" kinda look, but took me at my word and stopped. Robert didn't move a muscle or shed a tear until the doctor was all done and mentioned no chips or other hard foods. Then he cried. He could handle the pain, but no chips. What?

William went to get his big cast off and it was decided that his arm wasn't fully healed yet so another cast went on. This one only goes to his elbow though and he has been much happier with it...and he can pull his pants up and down again. That's always a good thing. 

School is over and life is slowing back down a little. Fun posts about our closing festivities will be coming soon!

time flies

This is what Anna said to me today when our lunch time was an hour later than normal,

"The difference between Discovery (their old elementary school) and being home schooled is time. At discovery I would sit and watch the seconds on the clock tick by waiting for lunch or recess. Now I look up and we've past lunch time and it seems like we've just started the day."

Time flies when your having fun!

Always right

David reminded me of something I should blog about last night.

Sunday morning Robert and I were having a little disagreement. David asked him, "Robert have you ever been wrong?"

Robert contemplated the question for a few seconds then with a great big grin answered with all sincerity, "No, I am never wrong."

David followed up with, "You have never, ever been wrong before?"

"Well, sometimes I am wrong when I do a math problem."

Then David asked, "Have you ever told a lie?"

Again a moment of contemplation followed by a huge honest grin, "No, I have never told a lie."

He was so sure of himself and so proud of himself that he was never wrong and never told a lie.

Good grief, no wonder it can be so hard to reason with this kid.

Getty Villa

We finally made it to the Villa and it was well worth the wait! We absolutely LOVED it. It was the perfect thing to do towards the end of the year. We had so much fun seeing, first hand, the things we have been learning about this school year. I was a little nervous going into this, art in the antiquities are rather rampant with nudity, but everyone was very mature about it and we managed to make it through with no embarrassing comments. It is something that has been discussed quite heavily this year and I guess they were listening after all.

There was a  conservation station for the kids to practice some of the things that archeologist do to find and restore artifacts.

Add caption

The mummy was the kids' favorite exhibit, imagine that.

The gardens were exquisite.

After the Villa we went to Santa Monica pier. This is the only pic we have. Thank you Anna!

3 weeks from today is our closing day for this school year. It has been amazing and I am so sad that it is about to come to an end, also a little stressed at all the things I want to get done in the next 3 weeks. I would expect little blogging to be done between now an then!

BFF's

Last week we got to spend the day with some of our best friends. These were some of the first people we met when we moved here and even though they have since moved on we have been able to stay in touch. This family made some very difficult times in our lives more manageable and I will always be grateful to them for that.