School is out for SUMMER!

After the most different school year of our lives, including 12 weeks of distance learning at home, the kids are done and school is out for summer. Hattie finished kindergarten and is now a 1st grader. Fred finished 2nd grade and is now a 3rd grader. Ella will begin her preschool year. We don’t know what school in the fall will look like. We don’t know if they will start with distance learning again, go with major restrictions, part time, or if everything will be completely back to normal. We can’t know for a while. I am so proud of them and all their work. They did work hard. I am honored that I got to experience it along side them. There were hard and frustrating days, and many rewarding, good days. There was about a week that we didn’t finish most or any of the work, but we did finish almost all of it. And there was a LOT. BUT it was all so valuable. There were some people saying we shouldn’t force school and that the stress wasn’t worth it, and I did keep that in mind. Though there were some stressful times, I felt strongly that my kids needed to do as much of the schooling that they could, that I could guide them, that it would bless their lives and give them and me guidance and purpose during this global pandemic. It has. I feel so much accomplishment and it did bless our lives as we found our rhythm together and worked at our goals every day. The Holy Ghost guided me through this school year the whole time. 

This was the rhythm that we settled on that worked best for us (after much trial and error!!) 

Wake

Breakfast and scriptures

Exercise (eye of the tiger!)

Get dressed/ready (there was always a day or two a week that we stayed in our PJs all day)

School time Fred and Hattie while I nursed Annette to sleep on the couch for her first nap and Ella would do trues school with her)

Lunch

Outside play until dinner time 

(At 2pm if we didn’t finish all of school and music there Was time to work on that)

Dinner

Chores

Family walk

Bedtime

Looking back, this has been some of the best times our family has ever had. Collin would be working all day and would usually make lunch and dinner. 

Happy summer!!!