Unofficially, school has started!

We've already planned out our year, telling the kids that school doesn't officially start until the day after Labor Day. Isn't that when the first day of school always was? So officially, we are following a traditional school year from the days when I was a kid. Day after Labor Day until Friday, June 9.
Unofficially, however, we've already started schooling. In fact, I'm not sure we ever stopped. This summer the kids (1st and 6th grades) have read over 100 books each, continued some music lessons, sports (karate, dance, swimming), history (reviewed Ancient Egypt via book The Golden Goblet), have tutored ESL to our Japanese exchange student, reviewed and added to a unit study on Japanese language and culture, scrapbooked, participated in the care and showing of animals at the fair....It's rather weak in the math department, but even that was somewhat explored as Elli went through the fair premium book to see how much money she could make in each department.
Yesterday we read about deserts and made "scrapbook folders" out of file folders and scrapbook supplies. Since we are going on a road field-trip to Utah and Arizona, the girls each made one for the trip. It's a little bit more fun than the spiral notebook "travel log" I orginally had in mind. They plan to gather a bunch of information about each state to fill the mini-books (via words and pictures) within the folder. Check out this website for sample ideas (it's what inspired us): www.portfolder.com. We also made one together about the fall of Rome and the Rise of the Early Church, since that's our first unit we're studying in History.
I've also snuck in assessments for Latin and Spelling to see what they've retained over the summer and our easy "no-school" schedule. I'm not looking forward to getting them back into "Math", but their new textbooks seem more interesting than the dreaded redundant approach found in Saxon Math. Nothing kills a kid's interest in a subject more than boring repetition of stuff she already knows, especially when it's spoonfed into tiny bites of information. Here in our little family homeschool, we have a broad-to-specific approach to learning. I think I've finally found a math program that supports this approach. (Making Math Meaningful: www.cornerstonecurriculum.com )