Summer school 2020: Claire

 I know that schooling options have been weighing heavily on parents everywhere this summer. We made our decision several months ago to continue homeschooling this year, so, thankfully, it wasn't as much of a stressor for our family (although I've had sympathy stress for other parents and ALL teachers). The homeschool laws for North Carolina don't allow you to begin logging school days until July 1, so we definitely took a 2-ish month summer break from school stuff, which was fun for Claire. 

I decided that we would start back shortly after July 4th, though. With the baby coming in mid-September, I wanted to go ahead and get a good rhythm in place, as well as have several weeks of school already under our belts so that when we have hard days in the early newborn weeks (which we for sure will), I won't feel stress about taking days off as needed. That said, we didn't hit the ground running with five-days-a-week school; we did three-days-a-week for the first five weeks (with the alternating days serving as our dedicated preschool days for Lily. And Brynn. But that's a story for another post.). 

That plan worked well for several reasons. Claire seemed to do really well with easing into things. We were able to get our routine and expectations set without yanking all of summer out from under her abruptly. It was also really helpful for me to figure out necessary tweaks for how to manage Lily and Brynna during our school mornings (full disclosure: this is still a work-in-progress, but I've learned quite a few hard lessons so far and have worked on some kinks. It is NOT for the faint of heart.). Just recently, we've added a fourth day to each school week. The goal isn't to be rigid with our schedule but rather to keep a rhythm, consistency, and get what we can done now so that we don't go completely off the rails in September.

I made sure to take first day of school pictures, because I can't be stopped:

The whole crew

Getting started!

These two lulled me into a false feeling of ease on day 1; they quietly and happily did all of the activities I had prepared for them. This is NOT the case every day at this point. But look how sweet on the first day!

Claire has been doing great with second grade, and she is really a delight to teach. She loves to learn (most of the time), and she's been doing a great job with rolling with the little-sister-distraction punches. We're both enjoying second grade so far!

Now, for anyone who might be interested in curriculum choices, this is what we're using:

Language Arts- The Good and the Beautiful level 2

Handwriting- Handwriting Without Tears

Math- Saxon level 2

Science- Apologia Botany

History- Story of the World cycle 3 (this lines up with our Classical Conversations cycle for the year)

So far, we have been really happy with all of these choices. They all are working well for Claire for different reasons. If anyone is interested in more commentary on any of these, let me know! I'll elaborate.