End of summer!!!

For us, summer is coming to an end. Well not the 100+ temps, but summer as in no school, is over. We are starting Monday. Next month is our big trip to Disneyworld and we are taking at least one week off from school so we're starting early. We also like to take an extra week off around Thanksgiving and another extra week sometime during the holidays. The kids aren't balking too much about starting back since it's been too hot outside to really do anything outside of the house anyway. It's so incredibly hot, ALL there is to do outside is swim. We can still go swimming anyway so we aren't missing out on anything.
This year for school I'm changing things up. We are switching back to the original curriculum we used the 1st year we home schooled. It's called Heart of Dakota. I love it because it's very balanced. We did Sonlight last year and I do love it but we kind of got tired of every single thing being history based. The core of our program will be be all about reading good books, but with a little more balance. The big kids are doing Bigger Hearts for His Glory. Nicholas will be starting to do some school this year too. He's had a couple years of preschool but at home we haven't done much so far. With him, I haven't had to do much because he's picked up on so much listening in on what his siblings are doing.  He comes to me and tells me what he wants to learn and he practices it on his own with very little help. I'm so proud of his progress. Lately he's learned to count over 100, most of his letters and letter sounds, and writing most of his letters and numbers. He loves it! This year he will be doing a mix of pre-K and K work, moving into K probably 1/2 way through the year. With him, I'm using Heart of Dakota Little Hands to Heaven (we've done some of this one already), and Little Hearts for His Glory .