We took our PE outside for our run on the snow.

It was such a beautiful day and fun to get out and run on the snow. The kiddos had fun and did great not slipping because they also wore their trail shoes. I firmly believe that you don’t need to spend a lot to get yourself or your kids out hiking. Once we started hiking further and on more technical trails we invested in hiking shoes for Cannon then pass them down to Emerald. Somehow we skipped the next size Emmy needs for Cannon (also these shoes have been worn down from lots of use so we might be buying new for her from now on anyway). We have really liked the Merrell shoes for the kids.

These were on sale for both kids and I have never seen them on sale before! We got the Merrell Kid’s Trail Chaser Hiking Sneaker for Emerald and the Merrell ALTALIGHT Low Hiking Shoes for Cannon.

I think we should get extra points for our run because it felt a little like running in sand. It was cold but so nice to be running outside with my little besties.

We dove into second semester of hybrid school for the kids and I was a bit worried. I thought we might have a really hard time adjusting back and that Cannon would have forgotten a lot. It felt like we were on break for a very long time. I had no need to worry, both kids did amazing and were happy to be back doing school work!

We aren’t changing any of our curriculum that we started in August, we are happy with what we are doing so far.

Cannon finished his Alpha level math curriculum in November so we are starting the Beta level now, since this is second grade level math I don’t think we will finish Beta quite as quickly as Alpha. Also I am planning on getting in Kinder level math for Emmy as she seems ready. If we are still working on these math levels at the end of the year we might work on them over the summer and into next school year.

We are right on track and liking our reading and writing curriculum and I am happy with that.

Also loving doing our own unit studies and digging into topics we find interesting. We are starting a polar animal unit now.

Our plan is to have Emmy and Cannon both do hybrid school next year. They both want to and I am enjoying it so we will continue for now.

After a few days (weeks) of trying to cram in as much summer as possible I think we were all craving a slower day. We played at home for a long time, we even gave Bonita a makeover. This skeleton has been so much fun.

We spent the rest of the morning playing at the library and picking up books for the first week of school.

I still can’t believe that we start school next week.

lucky for us, these slow days will continue we just won’t have full freedom anymore.

We spent the afternoon at my parents house where I found this classic set.

It was actually a gift to my brother back in 1981 from our Aunt that we lost many years ago. I asked both my mom and my bother if I could take them to read to my kids and they were happy to share. I am so excited to have this family set as I have been meaning to buy it.

When we all got home we played outside all evening, had dinner on the deck (steak because it’s Cory’s birthday week). We were excited to see a humming bird visit our feeder.

I finally got out Back to School Occasions Bin put together and while it’s simple I really think I love it!

I think these little pencil cups are the cutest!

I also love these letter sprinkles.

We’re ready to celebrate back to school!

I’m a little sad I didn’t take pictures of my spring or 4th of July baskets!

When do your kids go back to school? Are you doing anything fun to celebrate the end of summer?

There has been a lot of big decisions made in our house this summer. Ones that will shape what the future looks like for all of us. Some I will wait until a more appropriate time to share. We took months to decide to go the nontraditional route of homeschooling (hybrid schooling) our kids.

We did preschool for Emerald last year and we all loved it so much.

Cannon would join us when he was home from school and stated asking me to do the lessons while he was home because he loved it so much.

I mentioned hybrid school because we are sending both kids to school part time so they still have a classroom experience while maintaining much more flexibility and time together.

I am very excited to start this journey together and a bit nervous. It makes me a bit uncomfortable because the norm is to send kids to public school. And we are big fans of public school, the teachers are amazing and our neighborhood school is fantastic. I was a public school teacher and really do think it’s wonderful. For us it just came down to wanting more time together, more one-on-one learning and chasing a wild and free life. Also we plan to take this one year at a time, as soon as it stops being the best choice for us we can always return to a more traditional route.

The plan is to have the kids attend school part time and do lessons at home with me sometimes. Also we want to include a lot of road-schooling where we take school on the road to learn and flourish while traveling.

It’s no secret that our favorite thing is to travel and see the world as a family. I am excited to take our little school on the road with us.

Have you ever considered non-traditional school? I would have never considered home schooling before but Covid forced us to do some in the past couple years and we found that we loved it! But please wish me luck, I have no idea what I am doing.

This feels like a very magical season in life.

I have learned so much in the last two years on what home school can look like.

It didn’t start out well in 2020 when Cannon was sent home from his preschool and we were trying to figure things out. I wish that I would have just bought a home curriculum at this point to do with Cannon I think he would have enjoyed it so much and I would have liked to guidance. Zoom school didn’t go well for Cannon at 3, he loved in person school but trying to interact on Zoom just didn’t work for him.

By the next school year Cannon was still doing some zoom school and was more okay with it, again I think a home curriculum to supplement would have been a good idea.

Finally this year, our THIRD school year impacted by Covid a friend gifted us a curriculum for a fun play based preschool to do with Emmy. And it has made learning from home so much better! Cannon is going to school in person but often joins us because he likes it too.

I love doing themed lessons, and discovering with them, I really wish I had these tools earlier.

There is a big part of me that would love to homeschool the kids for longer because I love it, and I love our time together. I also don’t believe that pushing academics early is helpful and kids need time outside and to PLAY. The one and only reason that the kids are registered for in person school for the fall is that they both want to go so much.

Cannon is very social and loves being with his friends and teachers. He has the best time at school and can’t wait to go every day. Emerald hasn’t gone to formal school yet but is excited to go.

For now we are going to watch and see how things unfold, but I will never say never.

Anyone else think of doing homeschool?