First Summer in School

Assalamu Alaikom; Hello dear readers,

Our first year of homeschooling is coming to an end; we have about 2 or 3 weeks left.  My idea when I started was to school during part of the hot summer months and to take more breaks during more pleasant months.  We did do that, and so now we are still in school while everyone else is on summer break.  It feels a little funny for me since I'm so used to the traditional calendar.  Summer is for being on vacation!!  But not necessarily in Texas.  Nope.  The days are long, humid, and scorching hot.  Pefect for staying in.  So we're still waking up, doing morning routine, then starting school.  More often than not, the older two are done around lunchtime, so there's plenty of time to play with friends and to go out if we dare, although we save that for evening.

We had two awesome days last week, masha'Allah, and these kind of days reinforce my love for this new way of living.  What happened both times was that we wanted to go out early in the day (once for a library storytime, second time was to go to a farmer's market which lead us to the Heard Museum).  We headed out before it got to be too hot outside and enjoyed a couple of hours in some really neat places.  That day at the library, the two littler ones and I sat through a toddler storytime while the older two worked in their Language, History, and Math books at the study tables in the library.  Once they finished their work they browsed for some books they were interested in finding and were ecstatic to find and check them out (!).  After we got home and had lunch we sat at our school table and finished off what was left on their daily agenda while Aisha (now age 2 1/2) napped.  It was perfect, masha'Allah.  I was loving that day, how we had a useful morning outing and still got a full school day in.

Yesterday was similar.  We were walking outside on the trail for a litlte morning exercise when I decided to go to McKinney's farmer's market to check their local veggies.  We drove out there only to find NO MARKET on Friday. They're open on Saturday only.  8-12.  Ok, well my oldest one knew we were in McKinney and that the Heard Museum was nearby, so he asked if we could go to the Butterfly Garden at the Heard.  Ummm, YA!!!   It was almost 10:00am so I figured we had about an hour left before it got too hot.  We zipped on over there and had a blast looking at their outdoor wildlife sanctuary and of course the gorgeous butterflies.  There are a couple of pics on my phone but I'll need to upload them to my laptop and then I'll add them to this post, insha'Allah.  We got home aroun 11:30, washed up, ate lunch, and then went up to school.  Musa took his math test and we did a long history lesson with Heba and Musa.  Maryam did her math and phonics, too.  Alhamdullah, we got everything on the agenda done and there you go!  I'm so happy I didn't try to keep the summer school-free.  Having something constructive to do for 4-5 hours a day is a good idea no matter what season you're in!!  Thank to some of the subjects we've studies this year, the two older ones have some interests they're working on in their free time.  Musa is painting and putting together a model of the solar system.  Heba is searching for crafts inspired by the ancient Romans.  Alhamdullah, it's really been a great year despite some of our rocky patches.