Week 13: The beginning of the end (school year, that is...)

Last week completed Week 12 and today we officially enter into the 2nd third of our homeschool year - HURRAY! It is a weird feeling...we're no longer beginners...however we are still so far from the end of our first year. And yet, I have started thinking about how we will end this first year. 

Since my oldest child started kindergarten 22 years ago, the last day of school has been IT for my kids. A children's holy day, in so many ways. When I was a working mom, it was a bittersweet day for me, because it meant that we had survived yet another year of the public school rat race, but it meant another summer of "free days" that I would miss with my children- again.

This year, the "end of school" will be a first-which is rare at my age, unless you count new age spots or new creaking joint pain. :) I have so many questions. 

• When do we finish - when we are done our last subject assignment? This is difficult, because in some subjects we are "on target" for finishing in 36 weeks, but other subjects were started later and won't be "finished" by then. 
• On a certain "day", because I can always stop when I feel we are are mostly "done"? 
• Do we stop when it is good for our family and celebrate alone or have our last day with the public school children? This one is hard, because we already feel so separate from the public school schedule that it doesn't really affect us at all....but we're not completely separated from that entity that used to be "us". It helps that last year's "last day" was so completely and hideously painful for me that I almost RAN to get away...this year will be completely different!

Then it hits me - we'll be moving onto a second year before I know it. What will we keep? What will we change? It seems to be constantly changing, but refining greatly over time. I just developed a health and art curriculum that we can follow through the rest of the school year. It took this long to figure out how to do that! The downside of using a "canned" curriculum when I started - I only had to create curriculum for the subjects not covered by Sonlight...and I had no clue how to do that! Thank GOD for the internet! lol

So, here we are in Week 13 and I had more questions than when we started. I guess that's good, since that means we are learning what is right for us....right? One thing I do know...these questions are ones that *I* am asking and that *I* can find the answers to, not someone else. Yee-haw!!!