We've been out of school officially for 2 weeks now, but I kept forgetting to take pictures and document the end of school, so I finally got the kids to sort of brush their hair {Drew and Trent} or put on pants {Paige} for me to take a picture. {grin}
Trent and Drew have been home since February 21 {due to chicken pox}, so they spent just a little more than half the year in their actual classrooms. That's really depressing!
Trent finished up his 2nd year of upper elementary, 5th grade, with Mr. Blackburn. Honestly this was probably one of Trent's worst years of school behavior and attitude wise. I continue to be so thankful for being in a Montessori school and for the patience of Mr. Blackburn. He and Trent generally get along and have a similar sense of sarcastic humor. Trent did well academically in school this year, all the comments we received in his end of year report related to his behavior/attitude/willingness to participate, etc. He seemed to work through all the homeschooling work pretty easily, which was nice. Here's hoping we can go back to school in the fall and that it's a better year for Trent!
Drew finished up her first year of lower elementary, 1st grade, with Mrs. Worcester, and she rocked it. She loves Mrs. Worcester, loves her class, and loves school in general. While homeschooling she was consistently doing 2nd grade work. She is reading really well and is getting better at her math facts and word problems. It took a lot more work to get her homeschool lessons completed - she just needed more help than Trent did to get through a lesson. She will be ready to get back to school once we go back {hopefully, please God!}.
Paige moved from Casita to Children's House during this school year and moved into Trent's old teacher's class {Ms. Jody} who we LOVE so much. I was so sad we didn't get to finish out our last school year at CMS, but I think/hope it'll make it easier for Paige to move over to Goodwater in August. As anyone who knows Paige would expect, she had a great year and was a bright spot in her classes. Ms. Jody sent us a note at the end of the year and commented on Paige's sparkle. Gosh, I'll miss her and CMS, but I'm excited to have all 3 kids at the same school.
Here's hoping we have a great summer!
The last few weeks have been very heavy on my heart and in my head. I'm sure it's been the same way for most of you. I've spent a lot of time immersed in Instagram looking at Black activist's pages and soaking in a lot of information and being silent.
I feel cautiously optimistic that maybe we are really on the cusp of something huge for our society that will impact generations to come. I so hope we are!
I've had a goal the last 2 years to read books specifically about anti-racism and books written by POC {people of color}. But past reading and talking with friends and having discussions with Trent, I hadn't really DONE anything {although working with our children is something all parents need to be doing, so I am not discounting that}. I don't intend to use my blog as a way to pat myself on my back for the work I do but as a way to keep myself accountable and also {hopefully} exchange ideas with you guys of things you're doing.
I have 2 main reasons I didn't do any actual work the past few years - 1) I was confused about what to actually DO and 2) I was scared I would mess up - say the wrong thing, speak when I shouldn't, etc. Over the past couple of weeks I've realized I don't have to {and can't} solve all the problems in 1 day or do it alone, so getting started and taking my first steps is doing something, and I've realized I AM going to mess up - it's going to happen and what I need to do is remain humble and it'll be a good chance to practice apologizing the right way ha.
Later this week or maybe next week, I plan to post about the things I have done to-date and things I plan to do in the future. I hope you will leave some comments with suggestions so that we can all learn and grow together! I also have some other thoughts I'm figuring out how to put into words...not quite there yet but hopefully soon!
I really hope we can grow as people, as a society, as a global village to make our world a better place, and I'm committed to doing my part!
