school daze

Today Bryce finished 2nd grade!! Woo Hoo!! Kate is still plugging away, as she has to have a certain number of days in, but rather than losing steam she seems to have become incredibly focused, is getting done her work in a very timely fashion and just generally doing a super job! I'm really proud of her. This is Bryce's last year that we don't have to keep track of his days, so I pretty much left him work completely at his own pace and he finished his curriculum early. He actually would have had a few days left, but he decided to do extra work today just to get it all done (as in, he did a 35 page math workbook all in one day today!).

School will be new and different next year for the boys; this week we enrolled them in Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School, which is a cyber-public school. It's a public school, so all of the curriculum, materials, supplies, etc. are provided, which includes a computer and printer for each child, but all the teaching is done at home, by me. They are assigned a teacher who they have 'conference calls' with every 2 weeks (I think) where they have some class time in a 'virtual classroom' where some of the teaching is done by the teacher. They actually can do the call online by using a microphone right at the computer - pretty cool, huh? The teacher helps with monitoring the boys progress and offering support to me, as we need it. The charter school also offers monthly outings for all the school's students, which gives them opportunities to connect live with the other students if we so choose (the outings are offered, but not required). They also take care of all the standardized testing, etc. that is required by the state (even for homeschoolers). After visiting a friend who has been using the school for her boys, seeing ALL the stuff they got and how user-friendly the school is (they do all the record-keeping of attendance, and review some of the assignments, so no enormous portfolio to create at the end of a long year trying to show all we've done!!), I was really exciting about trying this out for next year. Plus, it's really great to save money not having to buy curriculum this year. The boys, of course, are just excited about each getting their own computer.

At the moment, however, we're all just excited about the prospect of the lazy summer days ahead!!