The Overall's

May 1, 2012

Wrap it up

The following is a post from contributing writer Jen at Forever, For Always, No Matter What
It’s that time of year when many of us are counting down the days until our last official day of school. Here 10 ways to wrap up the school year.

1. Order curriculum/books for the next year – If you know what works for your family and know what curriculum you want for the fall, order it before the end of the year. You won’t spend the summer looking for the “perfect” materials (they don’t exist anyway!).

2. Set goals for a new year – Spend some time thinking about goals for the new year. Goals for yourself and each of your children, as well as your family as a whole.

3. Set goals for summer “school” – Summer is a great time to work on life skills like gardening and yard maintenance.

4. Create a bucket list for summer activities – Spend a family dinner or two creating a list of fun activities that everybody would like to do over the summer. It doesn’t have to be extravagant, but simple things like picking strawberries, catching fireflies, grabbing an ice cream from the ice cream truck.

5. Put together summer school workbooks – Summer is also a great time to brush up/keep up on basic skills. Create a small workbook/notebook of math drill sheets, word searches, vocabulary sheets, anything that would be great for a rainy afternoon.

6. Schedule exit interviews – Plan a date with each of your children to talk about the year, what they liked/didn’t like, things they might like to learn about in the coming year.

7. Have a meeting with the principal – Schedule time to talk about the year with your husband. Just like with your children, talk about what worked and what didn’t work for your year. Sometimes our husbands can view the big picture better than we can, because we tend to get bogged down in the nitty gritty of our school day.

8. Plan a day of reflection – Plan some time by yourself to reflect on the year and see what you might want to change for the following year.

9. Write a letter to each of your children – Write a letter to each of your children talking about the school year. Focus on the positive changes that they made over the year, save the things they need to work on for another day.

10. Have an end of the year picnic/party – This needs no explanation, have a fun afternoon and give yourselves a pat on the back for a job well done!

How will you wrap up your school year?

SIX!

I recall May 2, 2006 like it was last week:0 I was going in for a routine visit that morning when they discovered I had an elevated blood pressure. That, coupled with tunnel vision and a less active fetus---it was time to induce and get her out! She came out at 7:29pm that day:) Weighing in at 8lb 3oz

Faith loved her the minute she saw her. She couldn't get enough kisses, hugs, and smotherings.

Dalaina Hope Overall--- She enjoyed her sleep:)

She grew quickly to be a bundle of joy! She loved whatever her sister loved--especially playing with those noisy toy phones---you know, the annoying ones that everyone buys toddlers!!!

She loved to blow kisses

and try to make fish lips:)

She loved to help out whenever possible--especially when dad needed extra weight! She still helps him to this day with his stretching:)

She is still fascinated with all animals.

Well, there's my littlest---she turns 6 tomorrow. It is so fun to look back at the pictures and remember how far they've come!

She's soooo big!

Happy Birthday Dalaina!

April 19, 2012

Toothpaste....

I love the "unschooling" we are doing these last weeks of school. Today, we are reading the Toothpaste Millionaire. We decided to experiment with eye shadow~ as is mentioned in the book:)