The end is near!

There are 15 days of school left.

I'm excited like you wouldn't believe. Every morning when we struggle to get Nick out the door at 7:30 to catch the bus, Liam and I share a mini countdown moment. "18 more mornings of this." The end won't come fast enough.

Besides the morning crunch, there are a number of other reasons I'm excited about summer break. Nick needs a vacation and it's showing. My view of school has also been shifting over the past number of months since we decided to homeschool in the fall and so many things now stand out that I never focused on before. Why does Nick have to do page after page of math questions for homework when he's moved so far beyond the material they're covering? Is it really all that important that he completes every shred of homework when the sun is shining so beautifully?

On the positive side of things, I'm anticipating homeschooling with great excitement. I've been doing a lot more reading lately and I'm getting a better idea all the time of how I'd like to approach things. I've also been meeting more homeschooling families through park days and other get-togethers and each time I hear about other families' successes I feel reaffirmed in our decision.

This weekend I went to a garage sale that was being put on by a homeschooling family who needed to thin out their shelves. I picked up a nice big stack of books for $10 and the kids have been acting like it's Christmas. I got some math workbooks, some reading books, a book on maps, a book on weather, and some foam calendars among other things. Nicholas found a math book that's geared for the grade four level and he was excited about challenging himself. He completed some activities on using multiples (with help from his Mom who really had to think hard) and then went on to do some pages from the Bible Fun Pad. Yup, mazes for Moses and Pharaoh connect-the-dots.

We sent in our registration to our new school board last week and I'm waiting quite anxiously to hear back from them. The whole plan of homeschooling has been floating around in our home for quite some time and making a concrete step like registering with a school board adds a definite touch of reality to it.

I need to actually take all these ideas I have and put them on paper so I can create a plan to review with a facilitator. I need to overhaul the office so I can properly organize the growing piles of homeschooling materials. I need to take a deep breath and remind myself that things don't have to be perfect come September.