Back to School

We played hard that last week before school started.

We visited the park with friends:

We had a water balloon fight with our neighbors:

And we co-hosted our 2nd annual back to school party with the Sherills:

"Back to school" is different for us this year. North Carolina approved Connections Academy to be part of their educational system. This means Lincoln does the same curriculum as other Borth Carolina students, but he gets to do it at home! He has a teacher, whom he gets to talk to frequently and 200 other children in our area to get together with.

Our first day looked like this:

Drake did ABC mouse, Dorothy was in baby jail and I helped Lincoln at the computer. It was a little tricky to keep everyone occupied, but by the end of the week, we had a good system. I would wake up Lincoln at 6, so we would get a good chunk of work done before the little ones woke up. It will get much easier when Drake starts preschool after Labor Day. 

Drake has been doing some school at home, although it's not his favorite thing. It takes a lot of convincing! He has been improving quite a bit with his handwriting. He can write his name, but I'm probably the only one that can read it.

They both helped me make this poster of what our day looks like:

Because Lincoln zips trough the lessons, we have to fill in our required time with other learning material. I asked him what else he wanted to learn about and he thought about it for a second and then rattled off," trains, I want to know more about trains. Wait, motorcycles, Cowboys, planets. I want to know how roller coasters work and how to make costumes." I adore how he loves to learn and has a thirst for figuring things out! This week, we learned more about robots. He made his own robot out of pipe cleaners.

One of the things about homeschooling that always held me back was the socialization. We see out homeschool friends a few times a week, and our neighborhood friends about every day. We also go to the library for story time and Lego club, also homeschool pe will start soon. The way kids can't talk much at school, I feel like he gets the same amount of socialization!

We met our friends at the bowling alley on Saturday, since Dave was busy building our bed. My kids had never been before, and they enjoyed it! 

Dorothy just enjoyed the company!