School is starting

School always starts September 1 here, with the Day of Knowledge holiday. Since it's a Saturday this year, I get a little reprieve as a teacher. We had our "opening ceremonies" and photos and Morning School (the time that we have all together each school morning), and then free time, no individual lessons. We are planning to go to a concert this evening. Monday will be the start of real school.

(Hmm. A year ago our electricity was out at this time of year, too. It was the whole street, though. Not just our house. I'm glad it's back on now.)

Actually, almost everything is the same as last year. Jaan's done with music school and officially in 9th grade; those are the only big changes. I spent some time this summer registering him with an American umbrella school and making a real high school plan, so he'll have that if he needs it. People always ask about his plans, but he doesn't know what they are yet, so we're keeping all doors open. He's keeping on with everything from last year, adding a physics course, and teaching Bogdan beginning music, while continuing to learn and practice piano on his own. I finally got Karen's Know and Tell book, so I'll be studying that, and I am scheduling a meeting with Jaan every week to work on his writing. For extras he still has theater and robots.

Raia is also keeping on keeping on. Unfortunately, when she went in for her meeting at music school yesterday, she found out that her beloved balalaika teacher is taking an early retirement and was just introducing her to her new teacher. She's in 7-8 class at art school.

Asya, too.... This has been the summer where she has really taken off with reading for fun, and that will probably make the school year ahead even better. She's in 5th class at art school and her third year at music school (flute).

Bogdan has AO Year 1, continued focus on really learning to read, art school, and music with Jaan to get ready for music school next year.

I'm reading AO Year 6. Actually, I started with Jaan, but got way behind, so now it's pre-reading for Raia. I love it. This is what I fill in any free moments during school time with.

While we start homeschool full-out right from the beginning of the month, most of September is usually back and forth about the rest of our classes. We'll see how that goes this year. So far we have art school schedules, but even those have already been modified.