Finishing and Starting School

Oh, the beauty of homeschooling! There is not a chance for summer boredom to set in completely if you homeschool - you just don't stop schooling! That is what we did this year and it really worked. It helps the kids have some down time, but still maintains some purpose to their day. So, toward the end of July, we finished some of the things we had been working on and began to organize our things for this school year. Caleb spent a lot of the summer learning about dinosaurs and the evidence for creation vs. evolution based on the dinosaurs. He worked hard and put together this lapbook full of info that he learned along the way:

He also worked on this diorama that MaKenna volunteered to help him with. This is the inside:

And this is the outside - notice all the dinos are hiding from the T-Rex inside!

We had a fun summer, but love starting a new school year - yes, even my kids love it! Honestly! (Well, not soo much Caleb, but the girls do definitely!) Anyway, after organizing we decided to start on August 4th.

I laugh as I type "organizing" cause now all of you probably think that the house is perfectly in order and we know where everything is and all is just as we want it to be - HAHA!! We are at such a different place than that in our lives right now!!!! We just happen to know where most of the things are that we need most of the time!!! Isn't that what is most important??

It does bother me sometimes that it is not just as I would like it, but I learned as my kids were growing that I only have so much time with them and I don't want the time that I have to be spent worrying about my house and how clean or organized it is. I love being a mom more than anything else and it is so important to me that my kids see me as available for them and what is truly important. OK, that was not meant to sound preachy!!! Just expressing my thoughts here!!

So, we are back in school for a couple of weeks before our vacation!! The girls are doing some new things - nutrition for one and they have chosen Sign Language as their Foreign Language for another. I am so happy that they did. We have an excellent sign teacher at church who is so gracious to help them any time they need it, but we do have a curriculum that we are using as well.

Caleb is going to be traveling around the world this year for Social Studies and even applied for a passport today - all just for fun! We will make him a passport that will be stamped as we "travel" and will add details as we go.

So, those are just some of the many fun things going on here at the start of the 08-09 school year in the DeVore home. I pray that it is an exciting year - for our family as well as yours!