First Quarter

We're turning in our First Quarter homeschool records tomorrow. I can't believe how quickly time has flown! It's been neat writing out all of the things we've done since starting in August. I am so thankful for how well the year has gone.

The first quarter (ending November 30) was 75 out of our required 170 days within a calendar year. I'm sure the 2nd quarter won't consist of as many school days because of Christmas/New Year and Baby-birthin'. We'll probably take our "Spring Break" the week after the baby is born.

I'm a teeny bit concerned that Rocky is going to finish school way ahead of the girls. He tends to just fly through his workbooks when the day's assignment is too easy. Sometimes I have to stop him and say things like, "Please don't do that today so that you'll have something to do tomorrow." I've had to get him a few little "extras" to keep him busy. His favorite right now is the math dot-to-dot. It's got a lot of "count by 2s" and "count by 3s" some of them starting in the hundreds. He thinks it's great.

What a change from the first week of school, huh?

Henry and I still can't get over how much we all love homeschooling and how wonderful it has been for us. We still ask the kids to reassure us that they love it. We ask them all the time if they miss their friends or wish they were going to ECS or if they want to be around other kids. We ask if they wish they had to wear uniforms or stay in school until 12:30 (we only ask this on the days they finish early. We avoid this on those tough days that last until nearly sunset!) Our favorite discussions come around 4:30 when we see kids getting off the bus. I'll ask them, "Don't you wish YOU rode the bus to school?" They always laugh (and have started to sigh because of the repetitive nature of the questions) and say, "Noooooooo way!"

In all fairness, I know they DO miss their friends. That has been one thing that is definitely an issue BUT it is not a big issue. Even though they're not big phone-callers, they do call their friends a teeny bit more often than they used to. They also have gotten into emailing. Mostly they are writing grandparents and even some of my friends but that social interaction is something they really want every day. (By the way, if any of you want to write the girls an email, ask me for their addys off-blog. I'm SURE you'll get a very chatty reply. This invitation isn't open to everyone by the way. I'm sure y'all realize that!)