Learning to swim & First day of school

So, our plans changed a bit. Didn't I say that I love the flexibility of homeschooling? My parents asked us last Saturday what we were doing this week as they had rented a condo in Orange Beach for a few days and wanted us to come down. How could I say no? We all drove down Sunday night and spent 3 nights. So it wasn't school as I expected, but it was a great start to our year as it turns out. First of all, our soon to be 6 year old learned to swim! This was a huge accomplishment for him, as he was deathly afraid of the water as a toddler and wouldn't even put his face in the water for one second until this summer. He was so proud of himself as he took off his swim jacket and swam all around the pool. Secondly, the kids were having difficulty getting along last week, and the trip was good for their relationships as well as mine with them. So today we got up and dove right into our homeschool!

I have been wanting to post some pictures of our homeschool room/playroom that we built last Spring. I will try to do that later this week. I actually have a daily schedule that we will attempt to adhere to as best as we can. I am not much of a scheduler, although I do like routine and tend to make a lot of lists. I bought Rachel some workbooks for school this year as she has been wanting to "do school" like her big brother, so she has her own workbooks, thanks to Rod & Staff. They don't have a lot of fluff like some materials out there, but I really like the simplicity. We are trying out Sonlight K with Scott Jr. as well as Saxon Math 1 and will continue with Story of the World for History, which we really enjoyed last year. I highly recommend it especially if your kids like read-alouds. We didn't finish our handwriting book last year, so he will continue with Handwriting without Tears. It almost produces tears in me, the Mom, to get him to do his handwriting, so I am not sure what the title is supposed to imply. But I have heard that boys sometimes aren't ready for handwriting as early as girls, so I hope this will get a little better. All in all, I expect a fun yet busy year. And I am sure we will be making adjustments as the year goes along.