Almost done!

I can't believe it's here but next week is our last week of school! It's gone by so fast! We just have four days left but they both want to continue over the summer with some sort of school. I told them we could do some light work but I think we need to enjoy the summer together! We can always do nature journaling, too. Perhaps math could be continued over the summer and possibly Latin, but we shall see.

As I've thought about our first year of homeschooling, I have realized a few things:

1. Our family is stronger. The girls have a greater appreciation for each other, because when you take away the extras (even though they are good things, like friends, and extra-curricular activities), they are more grateful for one another. Not that they don't participate in extra-curricular things (they do!) and don't have friends but I think sometimes it can be easy to focus on those things when going to school every day.


2. I daresay, my kids are smarter and have learned more! I am pretty impressed with Ambleside Online's curriculum... their website isn't anything to write home about and it probably turns some people off but if you look past that and read up on what the AO advisory team has done, then you will see the benefit of such a rigorous curriculum. The books they have chosen have been a challenge for my kids and I am so grateful since they weren't being challenged to their full capacity at their old school. Their world has been opened through reading good, quality literature and living books.


3. I am a sinful creature. My sin has never been more obvious to me than it has every day this past year of homeschooling. My weaknesses and faults are magnified when I am trying to teach and train my children. It has been very humbling and eye-opening and has taught me to cry out to the Lord on a continual basis for forgiveness and wisdom. This is one benefit I did not see coming but it has been good for me even though it is extremely hard. I didn't realize how much I would benefit from homeschooling. I was simply looking at it as a great thing for my kids but I can see how God has refined and will continue to refine me through it. Not fun, but good.

Birthday Greetings for a Queen

Louisa is studying the Kings of England right now in Year 2. We are currently on Henry VII... don't know how I feel about introducing her to Henry VIII. Anyways, since we are studying the monarchy, we thought we would send the Queen of England a birthday card for her 90th birthday! I found a cute card for her to color, thanks to this website.

Actually there are a lot of cool activities and resources for the English monarchy on the site-  I would definitely recommend checking it out if you are studying the kings and queens.

Louisa was instructed to write in her neatest writing... I gave her some ideas of what she could say but she wrote it herself and enjoyed it. Anyways, we formally addressed the card to the queen and I took a picture because we both got a kick out of addressing it to "Her Majesty the Queen."  :) I did have to add one more stamp... FYI... in case you want to send your own birthday greetings to Her Majesty. They aren't formally celebrating until May 12-15 even though her birthday was April 21. By the way, she is the longest reigning monarch!

Probably won't get a reply but wouldn't it be sweet if we did?? :)

Butterfly Field Trip

We recently went on a field trip to the Peggy Notebart Nature Museum in Chicago!

The highlight of the visit was definitely the butterfly exhibit.

Even Julia loved watching the little birds they have in the butterfly exhibit. She LOVES birds!

We came home and we looked up the names of the butterflies and then they drew them.

Here are their drawings: