School is out.

This week was our last formal week of home schooling for the year. We really worked hard earlier in the year in order to finish up early. I am not quite sure that my son realizes that his summer vacation ends up being about 6 weeks longer than the kids in traditional public school. I am glad to have a nice long break and be able to focus on some things around the house. There is no spelling tests that remain to be completed. There is no explaining why we need to learn how to spell "spirometer" and frequency. There is just playtime and enjoyment to be had. About half way through summer break we will break out the text books and begin slowly easing back into the school routine. I have found that by doing a little bit of work over the summer we don't have to play catch up as much. Kids tend to forget a great deal of information over the summer and spend the first month of school refreshing their memories. We avoid this by continually touching on subjects like math and language over the summer. We also end up way ahead at this time of the year which is really nice.