Last Week and Where We Go From Here

Unicorn cookies for A2

We finished all of our curriculum up last week. So this week it was cooking treats for math and science.

And writing silly stories for Language Arts.  For our silly stories, we opened a book, read the first sentence, added, "And then the dragons arrived!" And created a story from there. We had some pretty funny ones.

We have piano one last time before the start of summer and are planning a few outdoor adventures as soon as public school is out.

A1 also took A2 to story hour this week since I was sick. They made Mother's Day candy bouquets, which they also ate since I was sick. Here's the remainder of one.

We also pulled out our box of seashells this week for fun. 

A2 had her final Joy School program and brought home a book of many projects she has worked on throughout the year.

She has loved Joy School and we are grateful for her amazing teachers.

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Now, Where Do We Go From Here?

I have homeschooled for many years and OpenEd is my favorite program to use. I love the clubs, virtual field trips and the support we get from teachers. We gave up a much larger monetary scholarship to be with OpenEd because OpenEd offers a community that is worth more than money alone.  

I love OpenEd. However, we live in a small rural community. The homeschoolers have not been as active in getting together as they have been in years past and A1 misses his friends. The local elementary school also offers band, which he is interested in taking.  Therefore, A1 has decided he wants to give public school another try.  

I have mentioned previously, this year we had four kids in four different schools, and it has been a lot. Next year, J is starting high school.  It is a very real possibility she will also have online classes at home to meet her academic goals. A2 will be doing half day kindergarten at the elementary. We have few things to work out there, but I love the kindergarten teachers.  And that brings us to what to do for K.

K, who is autistic, has had a difficult year at the public school with other kids. While he has excelled academically with an absolutely fabulous teacher, the "social skills" being taught by peers are not the type of behaviors I want him to be internalizing. He also sometimes struggles to make it through such a long academic day. Multiple times I have been called to the school for meltdowns or other behaviors. While these have been few compared to overall school days, it has made it difficult for us to go on field trips with A1 this year because I was never certain when K would need immediate attention.

While we wanted K to finish out a full year of public school, he has expressed many times he would like to be homeschooled next year. We will be staying with OpenEd and he is already looking forward to the clubs and online activities. He is also very excited to start doing more hands-on learning which he prefers over desk work. I can tell you already, science is going to be a blast. 

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See you next year!