With the baby coming sometime in August and my mom coming for a two week visit in the middle of September, I decided it would be easier to just take those months off. So, in order to fit in the days we need to complete our schooling this year, we ended up with a crazy schedule that starts today and goes for two weeks before we break for two more months.

So, today was our first official day of the school year, and it went really well. In reality, however, my children got bored with vacation long ago and started working on some of their favorite subjects on their own. Here are some pictures of an experiment my thirteen year old did last week. It is from the Apologia Physical Science book.

And here is my four year old working with some cloths pin counting cards I made so she could practice her number recognition and counting skills.

She thought these were the best fun and got them out again today to work on. I had planned to work on alphabet sounds with her today, but she surprised me by knowing more than I thought she did. So, we ended up doing some reading instead. She did great (normally she pretends she doesn't know things, but today she actually did the work) and I was very pleased.

And here are a couple more pictures from today. First, a model of the solar system my eleven year old made. This experiment comes from the Apologia Astronomy book.  We had a little trouble getting the balloons the right size, but I still think it looks cool.

And here is my favorite picture. This is my five and a half year old practicing her reading. She is the one I wrote about on my Preschool Phonics lens. As you can see, she still can't sit still!