Summer Is Here - School has Ended

Well last week we unofficially, officially ended our school year. Officially because I asked the kids when they wanted to end school as schools in our area end anywhere between May and June and they said 'Now' and unofficially because we are more lax during the summer months with vacations, trips, camp but we still continuously learn, review, read, explore...does learning every really 'stop'?

So that's it, the kids completed another year at home- and are now moving into '4th grade' and '9th grade' according to their ages. We spent last week on our last week 'schooling', discussing how the year went, challenges, fun things we learned, places we went and the most fun..we spoke about plans for summer and plans for next school year.

The excitement has begun...new adventures are in store. And why wait until 'next school year'...the adventures begin- Now.

In my weekend blog reading I shared this site with my kids that I ran across and they were both immensely interested. We watched the live cams, mapped out where the locations were on our world map and went online to the library putting books on hold to learn more.

 Africam 

Our son especially was truly excited to see animals on the live web cams, especially the Black Eagles. We scoured the internet for more information on these birds and read about this research project:

http://blackeagleproject.blogspot.com 

(Photo credit from the Black Eagle Project link above)

Upon reading and learning our 9 year old exclaimed that is what he wants to do when he grows up- research and study birds and help preserve species that are endangered. We are looking into ways he can help now. 

Our weekend was filled with outdoor time, household chores, a morning trip to the river with daddy and sitting down to make plans for our outdoor space- a deck, moving the dogs yard, chicken and duck coops and clearing the yard.

It will be both a work filled and fun filled Summer ahead.