Wrapping Up Last School Year

Summer is winding down.  I have months of adventures still to blog, but school starts in just a couple days.  Before I can write about what we'll be doing for this upcoming school year, I realize I should probably take a minute to go way back and wrap up last year's school year.  Yikes.

The couple months of summer break have likely softened my view of how the year went; most thing seem rosier in retrospect.  We did have a lot of fun. We did a slightly better job this year of incorporating art projects and field trips (thank you, Five in a Row!).

 

One day even Aubree was able to join us for a field trip to the Museum of Flight.

It was nice having a bigger kid around to help (quite literally) keep the younger kids in line.

But sometimes, you've just got to let them fly...

We continued to get together weekly with the Coberly's for a history/science/Five in a Row co-op.  This is one of the most beautiful parts of our homeschool schedule.  We love getting together with our friends, and it ensures that we actually do the extra, fun projects that might otherwise get pushed to the side.

I did not love the weekly co-op we joined.  It wasn't terrible, but we won't be doing it again this school year.  I taught the preschool class and Graham (in typical fashion) loved every possible moment he had to be social.  Bryce and Thane had classes together.  They liked their classes, which is the primary reason we stuck with it the whole school year.

 I had similar feelings about their weekly gymnastics class.  It was just "meh."  The boys got a little bored of going, but we stuck with it because it was good exercise.  The teacher ran it more like a PE class than a gymnastics skills class.  I think the boys wouldn't have gotten as bored if there was more skill building and/or variety of activities. 

Thane had a strong academic year.  He made tremendous progress and proved himself to be a quick and willing learner.  His reading is fantastic, especially after he discovered chapter books this summer.

Bryce is also a solid student, but ever since we started school up again after Christmas break (yes, 8 full months ago), he's had a very difficult time with self-control and task completion.  We had a lot of whining, obnoxious noises, defiance, and even full on tantrums.  

One particularly difficult morning, I got a text from a friend, "I'm out on a jog, do you want me to take Graham with me?"

I thought this was a strange request, since she already would have 2 kids in her double jogging stroller, but I was able to fairly quickly figure out a likely reason for her offer.  I texted back, "Are you by chance jogging by my house?  If so, it's my 8 year old you hear throwing a fit, not Graham."  Ugh.

We are still working on these issues.  I think we're making progress.  I guess we'll see how it goes when we get back in the swing of school again.  Wish me luck.  I'll need it.