Our school year starts in June and continues to the following May.  We formally take off the months of February and August and a few weeks in December and May...

I usually spend the month of February getting things together for the start of our year with time spent on reflection upon what has and hasn't worked over the past year...

This past year was year 4 for the princess with the prince supposedly in kindergarten.  I say supposedly because it was pretty much a joke.  Jett is a young 5 (birthday in July) and being a wild boy, he doesn't care anything about learning formally.  I'm glad I didn't invest in a whole lot of workbooks because he could care less.

Shawn was reading before she was 3 and Jett is barely literate at times it seems, but what he does, he does well... the boy can build and create just about anything... so that has been his school this year...

Up until this year we used The Well-Trained mind exclusively, but this year I transitioned us to amblesideonline's (www.amblesideonline.com) Year 4...  I felt that what we were doing wasn't "fun" or anything but dry eduacation.  

I have discovered that it doesn't matter what we use, it is my attitude and effort that determines the level of enjoyment with what our family does... be it school or anything...

Anyhow... I pretty much like most of what we used.  The good thing about ambleside is that it has so many free downloads and resources.  Many of the books I do buy (because I am a book junkie), but I like having the option of printing them out or reading on the computer before spending money on some book just because some curriculum site said it was a good, old book.  I think that this is why I liked The Well-Trained Mind so much...it offers suggestions and tells what they consider the pro's and con's of each that they recommended...