A Mess of a Catch Up

We really are still living. I just haven't taken pictures of anything in awhile. 

Sadly, I've had to use my phone for most of my pics lately, 

because I don't even carry my camera with us.

Spring is in full swing. We've had some beautiful weather. 

We neeeeeed to get the starter garden rolling. 

It suffered a lot from freezing night temps, since we planted it, 

followed by sorry neglect. 

We have finally gotten our bird feeders up and ready.

They were so easy and fun to make...

And best of all, it doesn't matter if the squirrels ruin them because they are free!

We have been spending a lot of time with Gwin, of course. 

I always have you help me catch her, groom her, 

and sometimes do her ground work with me. 

You only want ride her a couple of times a week. 

But you are still in your lessons with Linda, 

where you ride Julio or PJ at her place.

You really are a great rider. 

You're learning a lot and even though you don't always LOVE the shagging,

grooming, tacking stuff, you always love to go and see our girl.

You have been doing very well in school. 

You're working on the beginning stages of writing short stories and poems.

Yesterday you wrote your first full poem all on your own. It reads like this:

"I had a cat named Boomer

He fell of the cowch

He fell on the vacum

He sed owch"

So cute. And true!

This was your first short story. I had to be about something you have done. 

It also had to have a title and the main idea in the first sentence:

At The Beach

I went to the beach. Jaymee is my best frend 

so I brote her too. I soe some ded fish laying in the

sun at the edge of the water, so I swame over them.

You made an illustration at the bottom of the page to go with the story.

I'm so proud of your writing, and how far you have come.

Copywriting is borring, for sure. 

But I am too amazed at the progress you've made with 

penmanship, formatting, spelling, and punctuation to ever let you stop. 

In fact, we do it more now than ever.

We are in an addition memorization holding pattern with Math. 

We moved past addition and all the way through subtraction before 

I realized that you are a super fast counter 

and had very little of your single digit facts memorized. 

I thought I could teach them to you in a week 

(because you learn everything else so easily) 

but habits are harder to break than learning new things come easy. 

So I am just feeding you with practice and waiting. 

We're in no hurry.

We have kind of dropped off science 

for this first month back to your last third of first grade. 

A few reasons, but mainly because we did SO much science this year 

(way more than the requirement) 

and your summer schooling will have science every day for six weeks.

We are mostly working on getting you through 

your first grade curriculum before summer school begins. 

You will be going to public summer school four hours a day 

for three weeks in June and three weeks in July. 

You have awesome classes in summer school, 

like Camping with Books, Outdoor Summer Games, 

I Want to Be a Scientist When I Grow Up, and Reading Adventures.

These classes will count for the school subjects that each of them 

are accredited for, so we will not do "homeschool" fully during those six weeks.

We enrolled in a new virtual charter school for next year. 

This program will allow us to continue teaching you as we want 

and to choose all of your curriculum, 

but at the same time will be accounting for your schooling, 

keeping track of your progress, testing you, 

and giving you at least the accreditation of a public schooler.

You have not been officially enrolled in school at all yet. 

Because of your age, you would be considered a kindergartener this current year.

Kindergarten isn't mandatory in WI, so we have not had to file with the state yet.

This coming year would be our first time to enroll you as a homeschooler, 

and having looked into the Wisconsin Homeschool Association for any changes

as well as pertinent information to our introduction, 

I learned some things I was not so comfortable with. 

Mainly, that Wisconsin has little to no standards or accountability 

for it's homeschoolers, and the homeschooling parents are 

doing all they can to protect those "rights". 

This, I'm afraid, may end up being at the expense of the homeschooled kids,

which is NOT what we want for you.

This new charter school was a huge, timely, 

and pretty miraculous answer to prayer.

We are past three steps of the four step process of enrollment and acceptance. 

It looks like we will most likely be in, and I'm so glad.

More random news: 

You've made a couple of new friends between karate and my small group. 

This Sunday we are going to your friend Luke's 

baptism and barbecue celebration after! :)

Oh, and everyone in your life pretty much calls you Kevin now.

Here are some pics of your sewing projects I promised:

Your first, and still favorite. Pigeon.

A couple of cut outs waiting for you.

You asked me the other day if I knew any boys who liked to sew like you.

I told you, 

"yes, but none of them want to blow up what they've sewn the way you do." :)

I know this is kind of a jumble of mixed information. 

But I've been piecing it together here and there for a couple of days,

and don't have time to go through it and iron it all out. :) 

Just needed to throw in an update.

You're the sweetest!Love you.