Celebrating the End of the Year!

We wrapped up our school year a few weeks ago! Our end-of-term exams were the first week of May.

We ended with a term celebration, which involved notebook displays, recitation, piano, and singing -- and snacks. ;)

Even my Little Girls (K and Pre-K) set up a display to show Daddy. :)

 As usual, we finished with a treat and a stack of new books and supplies to add a little delight to the summertime break.

The kids have been doing a ton of simple knitting using that yarn and the two tools I got: a lucet fork and a knitting tower. (I actually got two of each so we can have four kids knitting at a time -- and we often do!) Both are easy enough for even my 5yo to use on her own!

I also grabbed a bunch of books from the Gift Shelf in the garage, a bunch of book sale finds throughout the year that I keep for occasions such as this...

a set of vintage music books (a personal weakness of mine!): Singing and Rhyming, Singing Together, Singing on Our Way, Singing Every Day
Anno's Italy (a fun connection to our architecture AND Italian studies this year!)
The Golden Bible Atlas (recommended by Nancy Kelly)
George's The Moon of the Deer (to add to our growing colleciton -- tie in to Secrets of the Woods!)
Joseph Jacobs' Indian Fairy Tales (both my Form I kids and my Year 6 kids read quite a bit about India this year!)
World Landmark's The Adventures of Ulysses (Year 6 tie-in)

We also got a full set of Faber Castell Pitt artist pens for their lettering and some more needle felting supplies.  I replaced the girls' needle threaders for sewing, and Xavier got a St. Joan of Arc holy card to add to his ring collection, which is a Year 2 tradition around here. :)

That big stack of black books on the left are our new Books of Masterpieces! We have already had what I called our Books of Masterpieces, where my kids keep their personal prints from each term's artist study...but they were more envelopes than actual books. ;)  I have been looking for just the right storage solution for years -- and I finally found it. These are simple and elegant photo albums from Target that should fit all their prints from kindergarten through 12th grade. Perfect!

Now that we're on summer break, I'm hoping to share some of this past year's school plans as well as some of the keeping we have done. I'm hoping that will be easier to do retroactively rather than as we're living out those plans. :) So hopefully those will be up soon!