I can't decide...year end field trip or next year kick off trip?

Saturday we leave for Washington DC. I am absurdly excited. I get to be the tour guide as none of the rest of my family has ever been to our nation's capital before. I spent a week or so there in high school on a 4-H trip (Citizenship Washington Focus) and a brief weekend in the early 90's when my BFF got married and I was her maid-of-honor. I remember so much of the 4-H trip. It is one I hope my daughter makes when she is old enough. We will see many of the same sights this trip but I know it will have a different meaning to her at 10 than it will at 16/17 as it will have a different meaning to me at 40 than it did a lifetime ago. I'm just not sure what to call this trip.

I could call it a year end field trip and let it be the closing event of 4th grade or I could call it the beginning field trip of her 5th grade year. It really doesn't matter one way or another. Just trying to figure out how to caption the scrapbook.

I always have this deliemma this time of year. Since we have always unschooled year round it is difficult for me to decide when one "grade" ends and another "grade" begins. Usually I use VBS in June as the official beginning of a new school year because that is the only place in our life where what "grade" she is "in" has any real bearing. With that in mind I suppose this is her 4th grade trip.

Since next year we are starting Ancient History in our second cycle through the chronological history of the world making this the final trip of 4th grade (where we have studied the modern era) might "fit" more neatly. Since the school year at Veritas ended Tuesday it makes sense on those terms as well. The last time we will be chained to someone else's school calendar.

When I return I will be starting that desk job I mentioned last month. We are both excited about the prospect. How long that will last when she realizes we have to be at work "early" 3 days a week rather than one is anyone's guess, but the situation we have at the office will be so much better for us both. We have office schooled before, the last half of her kindergarten year, and it was one of my favorite times of homeschooling her. Being in the office, away from the distractions of TV and toys, we were able to accomplish more in those short days than we ever have since.

I hope that she comes home excited about what she has seen and done in DC and Williamsburg. I hope that she will be willing to do some projects with me that tie in with what she will have seen and learned. I hope that we stick with the exercise plan we have devised and begin seeing results in terms of better health for both of us. Yes, when we return it will be a good time for a new beginning and thus a new school year so this trip is the final field trip of 4th grade...5th grade starts July 14th. That will give us about 6 weeks to process DC and then be ready to move back into the Ancients. Sounds like a plan.