School has started!

Yes, school has started this week right after Labor Day.  However, I'm taking this week slow and easy, mostly to do reviews, work out schedules, and to establish rules and discipline.  We spent our mornings doing worship, reading, and math practice.  Nice and easy.

Thinking back about summer, it was great.  We didn't focus on academics and enjoyed our time together being out in the sum, traveling to Seattle, did a couple nature camps, etc.  All these things helped each kid to grow and mature.

For Ethan, even though we didn't do academics over the summer, he actually took the initiative to write, spell, and do math on his own.  That is very encouraging for any mom to see.  He also started to take up more responsibility as a big brother, teaching Bethany right from wrong...although sometimes he gets too bossy doing so.  One thing I was hoping he would grow more this summer is endurance.  He hates being hot and sweaty, whenever we went out to the playground, he would start complaining after 10-15 mins and wanted to go home. I really hope that we can work on this area over the school year through more outside play and the gym class he's taking at Learning Vine.  Another thing would be for him to be a better listener.  He's a visual learner so whenever I read something aloud, he loses his attention after a little while.  This goes with lectures from us as well.  So I hope that he will also grow in this area over the school year.

For Noah, he is still bouncy as ever.  I'm glad I signed him up for the nature camp this summer, he was not very good at classroom etiquette last year so this camp helped him to grow in this area.  He also grew in the love of reading bible stories, he's been begging me to read the whole children's bible to him this past few days and I was glad to do so!  He has been struggling to get along with Bethany, constantly picking fights with her, even though she's only 3.  I'm hoping they'll both learn to get along and understand each other better this year.

As for Bethany, it's been amazing seeing her language skills advanced so much this past few months.  She can even say "parallegram" and "tyrannosaurus". However, it's also been hard to discipline her, she is a very stubborn girl.  She struggles in the area of nagging, and I mean, constantly nagging...for food!  You have terrible two's and three's are trying!

We will start next week with full curriculum and schedule, so hopefully we'll manage and have fun at the same time!