It's done!!

Our school year is finished...whew! Now, it seems like the year flew by fast but there were times I felt like I was slogging my way through to the end of a marathon. My boys had quite the gleam in their eyes when they got out of bed this morning. School work only took them until about 11:00 this morning and then we went out to celebrate! :) We went to Steak Escape for lunch, Target for some sandals and summer clothes and then the big treat......Borders Book Store to pick out any book they wanted. Austen has been dying for the new Artemis Fowl book--The Opal Deception-so that is what he picked. Sam picked Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke. On Monday they will start the reading program I put together for them and Sam will begin working through the Keys to Fractions and Keys to Decimals books--these are the best resource I have ever seen for cementing these pivotal math principles.
Here are the books I have chosen for my little guys to read--Austen is age 13 (not so little!) and Sam is age 9. They have always been called the little boys because they were born so long after my first two kiddos who are 21 and 19.

Austen will read:
*The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
*A Boy's War by David Michell
*Alice in Wonderland by Lewis
*Freckles by Gene Stratton Porter
*Sounder by William H. Armstrong
*Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
*Big Red by Jim Kjelgaard
*To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (we will read this together)
*The Case of the Somerville Secret by Robert Newman
*The Cay by Theodore Taylor
*The River at Green Knowe by L.M. Boston
I would like to find a way to sneak in Black Beauty, A View From Saturday and The Blue Sword for him...hmmm..........

Sam will read: (The first three are beautifully republished older books by The New York Review Children's Collection)
*The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily by Dino Buzzati
*The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater
*The Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon
*A Brother for the Orphelines by Natalie Savage Carlson
*The Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson
*Owls in the Family by Farley Mowatt
*Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
*The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
*The River at Green Knowe by L.M. Boston
*Family Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
*Box of Delights by John Masefield

Well.....that is the plan... let the games begin!