The 2013-14 school year is over!

We didn’t have a lot to do this week. Everyone finished their math lessons, with just a tiny bit of new information for Turkey and Bunny…range, mean, mode, and median. Of course, there was one last test of the year, for both grades, and this one was a long test! I think it’s safe to say that everybody mastered the information in their books this year.

We finished Scottish history, with Georges III and IV. I have really enjoyed our trek through both English and Scottish history over the last year, and I’m really going to miss it. I’m glad that we took some time to learn about the histories of countries that aren’t America, and next year, we’re going to continue learning about the British Empire with Our Empire Story. If there were books that were on the caliber of Our Island Story and Scotland’s Story for other countries (especially, say, Germany), we’d totally read those, too.

We continued on with our botany lessons in science. There was obviously no way we were going to finish that text, since we just started it a few weeks ago. We have finished the first two chapters though, and started a fun germination project that we’ll be measuring for a few weeks…we placed seeds in a sunlit window, the refrigerator, and a cabinet. We’ll be studying which ones sprout, and how much they grow. We’re going to add botany to our baseball summer school lessons, too, so we’ll get through some (but not all), of the book before next school year.

We also finished Mr. Popper’s Penguins this week. It really is a great book…I’m glad we read it again! I’m hoping to get through a few more read-alouds over the summer, but we’ll see how they fit in with our summer school, plus all of the other plans I have for the summer.

For our fun, end-of-the-year activity, we built the Lego Architecture Eiffel Tower. The children have been looking forward to this ever since they heard it was coming out, and even though we didn’t learn about France this year, you can never go wrong with such an iconic building! I’m hoping to buy and build the Trevi Fountain sometime in the next year, as well…we already have landmarks from England, Germany, France, and U.S. on display in our schoolroom, so an addition from Italy will be nice.

After we take a break for a few weeks, it will be time for our annual viewing of Liberty’s Kids…all of the children are already asking when we can start watching it again! And after that, it will be time for summer school. I’m really excited about looking at the history of baseball as it relates to American history this summer…I have a feeling that our special summer school units’ days are short, at least with Turkey and Bunny, and I really want to enjoy it while it lasts!