School has begun!

This week we began our homeschooling year--since the children will be heading to China with us on August 24th. We changed Cherish's curriculum to Switched-On Schoolhouse, which is proving a good challenge for her. Though she is technically a third grader, she is doing fourth grade work. She thrives on challenges and strives to meet them! 

Hope and Andrew will be Kindergartners together. Hope was 4½ years old when we adopted her, and she was fluent in Mandarin Chinese. So, with the challenge of learning the English language and the English alphabet, she has advanced quite a bit in just a short time. However, she is not ready to begin reading yet, so she will remain a Kindergartner this year. The beauty of homeschooling is that if she does catch up, she can advance to her age-level. But, in the meantime, there is no need to hurry her along. She has come a long way, and it's more important for her to have fun learning than to be stressed to catch up with her peers.

She and Andrew make great partners! They play their phonics games and do other activities together--and it is beautiful to watch them work together and encourage each other along. It's a blessing to watch!

Such sweet friends!

Our tender heart!

Cherish wrote me a note yesterday saying that she loves her "new, fun school", and when I asked today if Andrew likes Kindergarten, he stated: "I SUPER love it!" Let's hope the feelings remain ;).

These children are a blessing!

What a joy it is to be with them each day!