We had just two weeks of school in May to finish out our school year!

Language Arts

Little Bug is closing out the year with 308 chapter books read! It’s simply amazing. This child can go anywhere with her love for reading. It is a gift that cannot be measured and goal I have for all four of my children. I am still convinced the #1 reason this child loves to read is because I did not push her to read when she was “suppose” to be reading (age 5) and instead let her develop those skills in her own time and at her own pace (she was 6.5 years old when it all clicked for her). I know I’ve made mistakes in parenting, but this is one area I know I did right. The payoff is right here, right now. My child LOVES to read.

Sweet Pea is on the verge of it all coming together. I can sense it. We’ve been working through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We are only 38 lessons in and there has been remarkable progress from the beginning to now! It’s going to click for her at some point and then her mind will be opened to a whole new world!

Math

Little Bug has completed the first of seven books in Level 2. Again, we are going at her pace. After the sixth LU we hit a wall and she needed some extra time to learn and process the new concepts. We took the time and Gramps worked with her as well while they were at Ridgecrest. When she came back she had made much progress. With ease she scored a 97% on her test for that LU and I knew it was time to move forward! We will keep working on math throughout the summer.

Sweet Pea is continuing to work her way through Math Lessons for a Living Education. She has made so much progress with number sense, place value to tens and even one hundreds (even though that has not yet been taught!), math facts and much more! She will definitely be ready for CLE Level 1 next year.

Science

We finished up the last few lessons in our Human Body science unit! We learned about the respiratory and what happens when a lung is punctured.

We used some fun ingredients to make the parts of blood!

One the last day we completed the Human Body poster that came with the Magic School Bus experiment kit. I would ask them a CC Science Memory Work question and after giving the correct response, they got to pick a sticker! Next time we study the human body I will have an 11, 9, 6 and 4 year old! That will be another fun year of learning all about the miraculous way God has formed and orchestrated our human bodies to work!

Sarge & Beau

Sarge is going to speech therapy on Fridays and he is making progress! Sarge loves to be read to. His sisters will read to him every once in a while and he really enjoys that. I’ve started including him in our read aloud time sometimes and he does very well listening to even a chapter book! I am trying to train him to play quietly if the girls and I are involved in something (like reading aloud). He will sit and listen and then when he gets tired of listening he goes off to play.

Beau is a little chatterbox at nearly two years old now! He will repeat just about anything we ask him to! He also enjoys reading with his sisters. Sweet Pea likes to teach him with books!

Both boys do room time for 60-90 minutes while we are doing school in the morning. For the most part, they do this happily. There have been some days this month where one or the other (or both!) have started to cry, but I remind them they play until the timer goes off and then usually that is all they need to play happily again. It helps to keep toys fresh in their rooms so they have a lot to keep them entertained. I am starting to introduce audio stories to them, and I know they will both enjoy doing that during Room Time!

We are Moving!

The month of May has ended up being a pretty crazy (good) month for our family! We made the decision to move in mid-April, but first we would need to sell our very first home in Hayden Lakes.

When the landscape guy went MIA, God told me to go do the work myself because a contract was coming by Monday. Sounds crazy, and it was, but the next day Mama and Daddy went out there with the kids and me and we got the job done!!

And, wouldn’t you know, Monday night at 9:30pm we were under contract! The amazing fact that the buyer could close in just 3 weeks immediately opened the door for us to go check out a house we had saved on Zillow shortly after we decided we would move in mid-April.

Just two days after seeing Majestic and six days after having Hayden Lakes under contract, we were under contract to buy Majestic! We wrote a letter to the seller and she countered our offer with a number that was simply amazing. God was opening doors we didn’t even know existed! It was incredible to see God’s provision for our family.

So now we are up to our eyeballs in packing as we are set to close in mid-June and will move in early July!

We are also in the “fun” process of showing our current house with hopes a buyer comes along and buys! It’s challenging keeping the house “show ready” with six people living here and four of them being “mess-makers”, but it’s a season, and God will carry us through, of that we have no doubts!

Come and buy me!!!

Other Happenings of May

We celebrated Mother's Day!

The girls got to spend a week at Ridgecrest with Grams and Gramps!

Dave and I went to the annual Homeschool Convention in Orlando, FL!

Little Bug turned 9 years old and we celebrated with a Cat themed birthday party!

May has been a FULL month and June will be too, but we are closing this school year with great progress and strides made by ALL of the children this year!

- Elaine