April

Where is the time going? Sierra and Kali went to a self defense class on Mondays in April leaving us with 3 days of school since they already have choir on Thursdays. The month just seemed to fly by. I guess it didn't help that we left for a trip to LA on the 22nd and then had 3 days home before we left for Florida the first weekend in May. We actually did do school during those three days. It is so nice that the older 2 can do most of their stuff on their own (math, spelling, writing, reading, typing, instruments) and then I just do some read aloud and call school done for the day.

What else did we accomplish this month? The problem with posting monthly is that I forget what we did. Let see, we finished reading the Math and Grammar readers, worked through some SOTW2 chapters. One more chapter and we will be half way through. Then I will call it good for the year. One fun thing we did this month was read a book about and listen to Carnival of the Animals. I had bought this book at some used sale a while back and had forgotten about it. It was great. The girls loved it and continued to listen to the CD and make up dances for the songs for several days after. Sierra recently made up a song on the piano where different parts represent different animals. I wonder where she got the inspiration to do that? What else? We may have worked more on the Poetry Curriculum. We are about half way through it and I am calling that good for the year as well. With our move coming sooner and sooner, I am really losing motivation. It is so nice that we can just pick up where we left off in the Fall. We also had Math Club. The last of the year. I had planned to do one more in May, but again the motivation is gone... We also had our Middle Ages group. The focus was China this time.

Our trip to LA was fabulous. In addition to getting to visit my friends we also went to the La Brea Tar Pits and the LA Art Museum. My friend kept commenting on how impressed she was with my kids. How well behaved they were and how excited and interested they were about topics that she always felt like she had to tried hard to convince her 4th grade students to be interested in. I guess I must be doing something right :)

I still worry that I am not requiring enough of them, especially Sierra. And I worry that their "skills" are not where they should or could be, but as far as instilling a love of learning and raising children that are kind and curious, I think we are doing well.

Goals for May:

Chapter 21 of SOTW2

Learn about states we will be traveling through this summer:
Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio I am skipping the states that we will just be driving through because I don't think we will have time.

Learn about Georgia O'Keefe since we will go to the Georgia O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe

Ideally, I would like to be done by the end of May. I leave for Girl's Camp on June 16th, so I definitely have to be done by then. After Girl's Camp, my in laws will be visiting, then my friend Ann and her kids will be here and then we will have 3 weeks until moving day. I may have the older girls do a bit of reading and math and maybe writing each morning on days we are not too busy just to keep their little brains working. And I need to keep working with Arwen on her reading. The month of August we will spend traveling which will be its own learning adventure and then we will be living in Hawaii!!!