We Survived!!

We survived our first year of homeschooling!

Hip hip hooray! And shout it from the rooftops! 

.... Seriously though.  Ha!  Many thought we were crazy for wanting to homeschool our kids.  And while I knew with confidence that for now it's exactly what God has called me to do, I still found (and currently find) myself full of nerves.  We aren't perfect.  I fail daily.  And I don't know it all, but I do know that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be for now.  While I'd love to commit to schooling all the way through 12th grade, we're taking it year by year and listening to His voice and praying for strength and perseverance to follow His will.  

So Leeland just completed his kindergarten year at home, and I couldn't be more proud of him! (And us!)  This kiddo has blown me away with all he has learned and how much he has matured this year and I'm over the moon excited that I've been able to watch him grow and witness each and every "lightbulb moment."

Aside from going through kindergarten myself and trying to recall memories from many, many years ago, I didn't really know what to expect from him.... but we enrolled in Classical Conversations, and I set a goal of helping him learn to read, and completing our Kindergarten math curriculum.  Those goals seemed sufficient to me, and yet here we are currently working through 1st grade math curriculum, and he's been reading well for about 4 months now.  AND on top of that, he has really flourished with his CC memory work and challenged me and what little I remember from school.  I know enough homeschoolers to know that we won't always be "ahead" like this, so I'm going to relish in it while I can. HAHA!  

We loved Classical so much, that we've already registered for another year, and since Hayden is 4 years old now, he's enrolled in his first year of Classical Conversations too.  We have been incredibly impressed with the program and the boys LOVE it!  In fact, there are 12 weeks each semester and so our community finished on March 29th and the last couple weeks the boys have been begging to go to "school group."  We'll meet with our community tomorrow night for end of year presentations and then we won't be back to "school group" until August.  

While that seems like a super long break.... trust that there is still plenty of things to do.  I'm already planning on continuing on with our math because Leeland really loves math, we're tackling a new spelling curriculum, and we also plan to participate in our library's Summer reading program again for lots of extra reading practice and fun.  Of course there will be lots of fun, and breaks, and pool and beach thrown in there too.  (Trust that our kids will still have a Summer break!) 

I just sit here in awe that we conquered our first year!  After all the planning and the nervousness... it is done.  So proud of Leeland!

1st day August 2015

Last day April 2016

...And just for fun, I had Leeland fill out this little survey on the first and last day of his Kindergarten year.

First day.....

One big difference is he actually wrote the responses on his last day! 

Last day....

His brother got bumped from being his BFF and now it's his cousin.... and he still wants to be "nothing" when he grows up.  We can only go up from here so I'm super excited for what our homeschooling future holds! Haha!