Dangerfield Updates: Homeschool Updates

Well, we made it through our first year of homeschooling.....well, Drew did. Lily made it until February. We decided to have her go back to West Ridge in February. She wasn't getting as much out of school as she could have because she would rather complain and whine about writing something than just getting it done. She wanted me to help her one on one too much....she didn't want to work independently, even though she was perfectly capable. I worked with her some, but I had to work with Drew more often because he needed more help. Our relationship was suffering, and so was her relationship with her siblings. She needed more structure, peer interaction, and a change of scenery from home. Drew finished out the year at Options and enjoyed his classes. He made some friends and had fun end of year activities. May and June were hard for him as well. He lost focus and wanted to be "lazy" and not have to do school work, especially any writing. We went through the end of June which was difficult because the other kids were home, so he didn't want to do any work. I had Erik and Lily do math and reading every day, but Drew would complain when he had to do more than them, like social studies and science. It was a struggle and we started arguing too much. He decided he wanted to go back to West Ridge as well. Alex will be going to kindergarten there, so they will both be at the same school. I have mixed emotions about Drew going back; I know he will do fine, but part of me wishes we could have gone another year at home. However, he made HUGE progress this year, in both math and reading, so that's awesome! Lily will be attending Achieve Institute at Pennock Elementary in Brighton next year. It's a gifted/talented school within a 27J public school. We've gone to a few family nights and she's been able to meet friends as well as her teacher. She will be in the 4th/5th grade class. It sounds like they are going to be doing some fun things. She's excited and I know that if she has a good attitude she's going to excel and have a great year! Here are some pictures from end of school year activities.

Walking to the park.

Visiting the Denver Museum of Nature and Science-we love this place!

Playing at the park for PE.

Fun at Drew's school carnival.

PE at the trampoline park in Utah. We took a long weekend trip to Utah at the beginning of March to see family and to surprise Malea for her baptism. Great time!

We toured temple square in Salt Lake City to learn about our pioneer/LDS heritage. This is a room in the Beehive House, Brigham Young's home and office. Pretty cool. I'd never toured it before.

Picture at the Salt Lake Temple.

Learning about the tabernacle.

Going to Science and Weather day with the Colorado Rockies. We were waiting for the science experiments to start, so they were bored. But, once things started they had a great time! Daniel met us for the game after.

Drew got to go to work with Daniel this year. He was so excited!

We went to the robot exhibit at the Nature and Science Museum. It was so cool! Kids enjoyed playing tic-tac-toe agains a robot. We also saw robots climb ladders and got to remote control robots.

We also went to the chocolate exhibit and learned about the history of chocolate.

During spring break we took a bike ride along the Eastlake Heritage Trail. We took a picnic lunch and played at the park. It was about 6 miles round trip. PE and social studies at once....perfect!

The boys went to a father/son campout (below) one weekend, so the girls and I went to the balloon launch in Erie. We got to walk on the field between about 30 balloons as they filled up and took off. We had a great time, even though we had to get up super early!