180 Days!!

We did it!  We completed the required 180 days of school and our first year as a homeschooling family!! 

The laws vary state to state of course, but Indiana's laws are fairly lax on the actual schooling requirements.  State law says that you must complete 180 days of schooling and today was our 180th day! We began last year in June when summer break was just beginning for most children and my little troopers were trucking along and actually enjoying it!

I was teaching kindergarten and first grade this year.  Now that our "requirement" has ended, that doesn't mean we are "done" for the school year.  Now we review what we went over this year and I am currently looking into placement tests to see if we left anything out that we should still cover.  I also want to use this to see where the kids "excel" and where they are "weak".  We believe in "mastery" instead of just simply "passing" the children along to get them into the next grade level - yet another benefit of homeschooling.

Beside completing our requirement and looking into placement testing, I am also working on our syllabus for the upcoming school year.  We haven't yet purchased a set curriculum and I feel more confident this year to create our own again...now that I have a better idea of what is involved,  it's not so "scary". 

So, here's to the last 10 months and 180 completed days of learning FUN....yeah...some days were certainly harder than others...but we DID it.  I can't believe how far we've come from the very first month. My kids have never been happier and it has been such a blessing to watch them progress and know that we did that - together.