As we wrap up our third year of homeschooling, we simply roll right into planning for the next year. It's that simple in the homeschool world. Things just move right on along.
Our 3rd year seemed to go by so quickly. It was our first full school year in our new school room. The room proved to be a wonderful spot for the girls to concentrate, for me to have a dedicated spot for our school materials, and a location that Trey came to know as "the place for school". During a portion of the morning during the school day Trey makes his toddler play area, the space just outside of the homeschool room door. When he crosses the threshold into our school room, he's "at school" so to speak and when he exits, he has free rein to play and get into whatever toys and books he can reach. Our year was full of reading, arithmetic, science, spelling, grammar, singing, practicing the violin, watching educational videos, and anything else that constituted "school" in our schedule. The most memorable field trip of the school year was touring the White House. Getting a White House Tour ended up being a lot simpler than I thought it would be. After emailing the local Senator's office and requesting tickets for a tour, I was contacted within a few weeks with instructions on how to get a tour. I had to submit information about each person in our group for White House Security and specific dates that we'd be available for the tour. I was contacted about two months later with a tour date and we were set! To walk the halls of the White House was a special treat for the girls and for myself. There were no sightings of the President, but being able to walk the same halls that our current President and past Presidents have walked just gave me goose bumps.
We finished up the second year of American History in the Sonlight Curriculum. Next year we'll shake up things a bit with a year of World History. Love will be moving into an independent Science curriculum through Apologia for seventh grade. I am thrilled that she's doing more and more independent work, but it makes me a little sad to think about my baby growing older and slowly maturing beyond needing Mommy's help for every subject area. I noticed a great deal of growth in my 11 year old this year that is expected as a homeschooler nears the high school years. We're also going to shift to a full Saxon Math curriculum, graduating out of the Math on the Level curriculum. This is a big step. Math wasn't the subject of the year for my girls three years ago. They stomached it, but didn't embrace it with joy. There still are no birds signing and sun rays beaming down on my daughter's faces when its time for Math, but their endurance for Math as grown and has reached a level that can handle the Saxon curriculum which provides an intense and thorough math program. For Bible, the girls had dedicated, focused time doing their on Bible study each morning using the book, "Starting Strong", by Paula Rinehart. Each lesson was presented with a fictional story about a character facing a moral dilemma. In parallel to each moral story, the girls were guided through scripture that supported the main objective of each lesson. In addition to using this book, we read through several of Paul's letters (i.e. Galatians, Ephesians) which gave us the opportunity to openly discuss Biblical doctrine. Challenging, yet engaging. It is a blessing to take part in my daughter's spiritual growth and see them mature even as young people to understand God's Word.
We welcome the summer months where I'll be sprinkling the girls schedules at a minimum with Math work and reading to keep the educational fire burning so it will be warm and cozy come August. We're also going to plan for continued violin, singing, and piano lessons and add in some art classes as well.
With the Lord guiding us, we're working to build and cultivate a continued love for learning!!!
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