Back to School!

   So we started school last week.  Yup, last week.  We've decided to run with the idea of Paul's schedule but start in August which was the plan if we continued the schedule we followed last year.  I'm amazed to sit here and tell you the first week went very well.  Apparently after 8 years of doing this I've learned a few things including scheduling MORE time than we need for things!  If I would have seen the routine we are using a year or more ago I would have thought NO WAY!!!  But it's working really well for us.

  So, life our first week was good!  I must say my kids having a strange fascination with waking really early is working well for us!  Probably has to do with the fact they never see early morning living with night owl parents. Whatever the reason, they don't seem to realize if it's early to rise it means early to bed so we are totally cool with it!!

  Also, I will say there is something wonderfully freeing having an older student who can run on his own!!  I'm happy to see that the last few years of slowly letting him go off on his own has resulted in a great guy who has learned to LEARN!!  He knows how to find information and if he doesn't understand he knows where to go and how to figure it out.  Very rarely does he need our help anymore.  Pretty cool to see.  Because he does do a lot on his own I made sure we did have some family time for learning as well. I like to learn with him and I don't want homeschooling to be something where he sits all alone for hours!  That's no fun!

  Last but not least I really planned for my two little girls this year.  Having them busy and filled has helped us accomplish all we need to do in a day.

  I'll share a little bit about our days throughout this week.  Hope you are all enjoying the rest of your summer and getting some good planning done!