The end of another school year!

And so another school year ends.......we no longer have a 1st grader nor a 3rd grader......but a 2nd grader and a 4th grader!  Next year Julia will be moving to the other side of the school and Joy will move down the hall.  There were some long faces on Wednesday afternoon when I arrived to pick them up.  So many new friends that they will miss!  They both had an outstanding year!  They both came soooooo far!  But the sad faces disappeared when they realized we were having a picnic with some of their friends.  Nearly every day after school we end up on the playground and there are always some friends to play with.  One of the moms called and said they were going to have a picnic after school.  So, armed with some sandwiches, pretzels, cookies and lemonade, we ended the school year!  The girls had a blast!  And us mamas had a few more minutes of peace! 

So, what have the girls learned this year?  Well.......reading!  We have come a long way from guessing the letters, to guessing the sounds of the letters, to basic words, to sight words and finally to reading!  In fact today we hit Goodwill and they both begged to buy books to read!  No baby books......easy readers!  Yippeeeee!  Another big deal around here......math!  Julia is big into math.  It's her favorite and she works hard at it, even though she really doesn't have to!  Figuring out how much time has passed and measuring things still needs some work, but she's doing pretty well.  Joy works hard at math, but it does require work.  She is very good at fractions though and is always dividing things up for us.  Joy also had a huge year in handwriting!  She has had to work very hard to place her letters on the line and not float them in the air and she has finally learned how to write all the letters.  I would say she is right up there with her peers now. 

So......summer is here and we are enjoying it so far!  Next week we have a little trip to Southern Illinois planned and then we will start doing some summer school work.  Although the girls are kind of excited about learning and have just continued on with our games and reading!  How cool is that!?!?