Fourth Quarter

 

We have officially entered the fourth quarter of our school year. The kids have already finished their Life of Fred books (Pre-Algebra with Physics for Oliver and Trigonometry for Nadia and Ian). Some subjects won't be wrapped up until May 7. I had planned on having Nadia and Ian read The Scarlet Letter and That Hideous Strength during the fourth quarter. Nadia read That Hideous Strength during the third quarter instead of Crime and Punishment. Ian is still going to read That Hideous Strength, but Nadia has opted to read Hamlet instead of Crime and Punishment. Both of them have selected Dracula instead of The Scarlet Letter. I still plan to have Ian read The Scarlet Letter sometime in 11th or 12th grade, but it seems unlikely Nadia will ever end up reading that book as she doesn't need to take any literature courses at Liberty. Oliver is currently reading Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan, and his other book for the fourth quarter will be The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum. He read six books from The Chronicles of Narnia in addition to A Wrinkle in Time during the first three quarters of seventh grade. 

Technically our last day of school won't be until May 25 because of the "field trips" we'll be taking in Europe in May. For months they've been showing availability to take one (expensive) tour of Buckingham Palace through the end of March, and then they had far more options starting in July. Yesterday they finally had tickets available for the expensive tour in May. Paul really wanted to go to Buckingham Palace. He didn't want to see the changing of the guard (which is free). We didn't go there when we were in London in 2002, and since Paul and I will probably never be in England again, Paul was willing to splurge. Most of the places we are visiting in May will not be "repeats" for Paul and me. I think the Tower of London will be our only repeat in the United Kingdom, and we'll visit four places we've already been during our one day in Paris. 

I only have two months left of homeschooling a daughter. The time has flown by. She is very excited about her new upcoming adventure. She and Maddie went shopping for clothes recently, and they got matching peasant skirts that they are both planning to wear on the first day of the semester at Liberty in August. In terms of my years of having at least one child at home (who hasn't yet graduated from high school), almost eighteen of the twenty-three years have been completed. I'm in the "last quarter" of my years as the mom of a baby, toddler, preschooler, or homeschooler. Nadia is taking three courses through Liberty this semester. The only math she's doing right now is preparing to take the College Algebra CLEP test. The only subjects I'm giving her a grade in this semester are economics and English. I had intended for her to do physics this year with Ian, but she really doesn't like physics, already had enough science credits for high school, and if she doesn't want to go to graduate school, she doesn't need to take physics in her undergraduate program. 

I've started to put a little bit of thought into plans for the next school year. It will be strange only having two kids at home. Oliver and Ian are not accustomed to doing science together, but I'm planning on having them both do biology next year and do the dissections with the coop in the fall. I think next year will be the only year the two boys do science together because Ian wants to do forensic science during his senior year, and I think Oliver will do general science when he's in 9th grade. I did Fix it Grammar with Nadia and Ian and had been doing it with Oliver, but it wasn't working this year with him, so I switched to the Giggly Guide to Grammar, which was a good fit, but it's just one book. This week I chose another grammar book for Oliver to do next year. I never did a vocabulary textbook with Nadia or Ian, but I started having him use Wordly Wise this year, and I plan to continue that next year. For social studies, I decided to have the boys do a year of World Geography by Notgrass. I used a Notgrass book for the first time in the fall (government), and I liked it. I'm not as crazy about the Basic Economics books I chose for this semester. Previously the kids had done four volumes of Mystery of History and four volumes of The Story of the World. For math Ian will do calculus (Life of Fred), and Oliver will do Pre-Algebra through Teaching Textbooks. One school related thing that will be new next year is that it looks like I'll be starting a three-year term on the MCS school board.

We have had at least one guinea pig in our house since December 2016. Most of the years we had two guinea pigs. Our time with Lily came to an unexpected end on Sunday. We have been dog sitting Cooper for fifteen days (he'll be with us for ten more days). Unfortunately, while we were at church on Sunday he pushed open Nadia's bedroom door, dismantled the guinea pig cage, and killed Lily. It was so shocking and heartbreaking. We know he was just acting on instinct, but it was very sad. Cooper has been in our house many months over the last 2+ years, so it really caught us off guard. If Nadia wasn't about spend the summer at Camp Susque and then move to Virginia in August, we'd get a replacement guinea pig for her but given how little time she has left at home and the fact that she was the only one who interacted with the guinea pig, we are not replacing Lily. Milo is our only pet. There's an elderly couple that lives near our home who has a 16.5-year-old Bichon Frise. Hopefully Milo will also live a long life and not have an untimely death like Lily did. Other unexpected (but much happier) news would be that my dad has recently become engaged. He and Karen are planning to get married this summer. The other unexpected, happy news is that my sister is expecting her tenth child. I say "unexpected" because my sister is 51 years old. I think my dad's third wedding and my sister's tenth delivery might both take place in July. Life is full of so many twists and turns. 

Almost done

According to my log, we reached our 180th day of school on April 30. In Pennsylvania, homeschoolers are required to log at least 180 days, but there is no guidance given as to what constitutes a day so truly, I think the 180-day requirement is meaningless. For me, a day is one in which either we do all our usual subjects at home OR a day in which we spend multiple hours at museums, zoos, National Parks, or the like. Tomorrow will be our 183rd day. We're taking Thursday and Friday off because Nadia and Ian will be doing an Outdoor Adventure Skills class at Camp Susque that will include sleeping in tents, hiking, kayaking, mountain biking, etc. I have invited one of Oliver's friends from church to spend about 26 hours at our home during the time Nadia and Ian are camping. May 8th will be our 184th and final day of the 2022-23 school year although we have other educational field trips planned for the month of May. Nadia will spend about 50 hours in drama rehearsals/performances the week of May 15. Ian and Oliver will continue to do math lessons for at least part of the month of May. I expect all three kids to read almost every day. Oliver will also continue to work on his missed word spelling list which is currently extremely long. Nadia and Ian will hopefully put more time into preparing for the Bible quizzing competition, and I'm hoping Ian will practice the piano more. Between now and May 8th Nadia needs to dissect a frog, finish her 1,500-word research paper on sharks, take two Biology tests, and finish her literature unit on Pilgrim's Progress. 

As of July 1, my kids will be in grades 5, 8, and 10. We are planning to start a new homeschool co-op. I gave my kids the choice of also taking classes next year at the co-op we've been at the last two years OR attending some classes at Meadowbrook Christian, and they have chosen Meadowbrook. I'm not sure yet what courses they'll take there, but at the minimum Nadia and Ian will take chorus which means they can participate in the school's spring musical. We're hoping to visit Ecuador and also go on a short-term mission trip to Guatemala in 2024 so hopefully, we will make good progress in Spanish over the coming eight months. All three kids will have Renaissance History, Bible, Spanish, and English.

• Nadia will also take Marine Biology and Algebra 2. She will also be taking 12-15 credits of college classes through either Boyce College, Grand Canyon University, or Bluefield University. The plan is that she will take 15 credits online through Liberty during her junior year of high school and then 3 credits (Calculus) through Liberty when she's a high school senior. She will hopefully enter college having already earned 30-33 credits, which should enable her to finish college in three years. Yvonne had this idea and has already implemented it with her son, Andrew, who will be starting at Cedarville this fall. College is expensive and reducing the time spent there by a year seems like a wise course of action! I'm planning to do the same with Ian. The reason I have Nadia completing more credits during her sophomore and junior years is so that she can attend Meadowbrook Christian School during her senior year of high school if she would like. 
• Ian will finish his Python text, finish General Science, and take Algebra 2.
• Oliver will finish the Land Animals book and 4th-grade math and study Anatomy & Physiology and 5th-grade math.

Back to School!

Nadia started Kindergarten in 2013 so we have already completed nine years of homeschooling, and if Oliver is in 12th grade in 2030-31, then including this year I will have nine more years of homeschooling at least one child. The past five years I have said that the kids were each two grades apart, but since Oliver is spending a second year in fourth grade, my kids are in grades 9, 7, and 4 this year, which means none of them will be taking any standardized tests this year as those are required in grades 3, 5, and 8 in Pennsylvania. This will be my first year of creating a report card for any of my children as I need to begin documentation that will become Nadia's high school transcript. Here's an overview of what we plan to do this year. Here's to hoping and praying that the kids will grow over the coming year - physically, spiritually, musically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially. 

Today we are attending a homeschool expo that is being held a little less than 25 minutes from our home. It's been a while since I attended any kind of homeschool meeting or conference. Tomorrow will be our "first day" of school. We had our first field trips for the 22-23 school year last week. On Friday night we attended an outdoor performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The kids weren't excited about going to see it, so I made the outing more enticing by telling them we'd stop at Sweet Frog first. Paul took the day off of work on Saturday to join us on our field trip which included a visit to the Lehigh Valley Zoo, the National Canal Museum, and a Native American festival being held outside the Museum of Indian Culture. We rode on a canal boat pulled by two mules for 45 minutes while we were at the canal museum. The two favorite moments at the zoo were feeding the giraffes and watching a porcupine climb down a vertical surface. Our admission was free at the zoo because of the membership I bought in Delaware in June. I paid $15 for all three kids to feed the giraffes. We also received coupons for two free Dippin' dots, and the kids were very excited to use those because none of us had ever eaten Dippin' Dots before, and Oliver in particular had been asking me to buy him some at other places. Oliver chose the cotton candy flavor, and Ian picked cookie dough. We had breakfast at home, packed our lunches, and planned to get our dinner at the festival, but we ended up just sharing one order of fry bread and stopped at McDonald's (using a gift card) on the way home. 

Handwriting - Oliver is the only one who has a handwriting textbook this year. I will require Ian and Nadia to copy a very small number of passages in cursive throughout the year just to maintain that skill.

Math - Nadia and Ian are using a Teaching Textbook app on the iPad to complete Algebra I (Ian) and Geometry (Nadia). Oliver will be using a variety of resources including Beast Academy 3C-3D and 4A-4C. I am hoping that by the end of the school year he has really mastered his basic facts with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. 

Spelling - Oliver will be working through All About Spelling level five. 

Science - Oliver will be working through Exploring Creation with Earth Science, which is a textbook that his siblings never used as it only came out earlier this year. Ian and Nadia will be studying Biology. At the moment, Nadia's plan is to earn a Bachelor of Science in Zoo and Wildlife Biology at Liberty University. Hopefully this biology course this year will help her confirm in her mind if that actually is the direction she'd like to head. Faithfully doing experiments in science has not been our strong suit, but I am determined that they will be doing the experiments in Biology this year! 

Social Studies - We will be studying AD 30-1460 this year through Mystery of History and a variety of other resources. We watch a ten-minute news show for students every day (M-F) all year long. I am going to have the kids each create a display for the Living History event one of the homeschool groups hosts every winter. 

Physical Education - Ten weeks of ice-skating lessons for all three of them. At least eight weeks of a weekly Ninjastics class for the boys. We hope to go skiing once or twice this winter.

Music - Oliver and Ian will practice the piano at least twenty minutes a day. Ian and Nadia will participate in the Susquehanna Valley Youth Chorale from August 29 - December 18.

Art- Ian and Nadia will participate in a weekly art class at the homeschool co-op from January 16- May 8. 

Drama - All three kids participated in a theatre camp July 11-15. Nadia will be participating in a weekly drama class at the homeschool co-op starting in January. 

Finance - Nadia will complete the High School edition of Foundations in Personal Finance, Ian will complete the Middle School edition of that same course, and Nadia will also complete a Foundations in Entrepreneurship course.

Keyboarding - Nadia and Ian will type the longer writing assignments throughout the year. Oliver will use an online typing program to improve his speed and accuracy. 

Spanish - The kids and I will continue to use Duolingo to make progress with learning Spanish. 

Language Arts - This year the kids are going to be required to write every day even if it's just a few sentences. They will continue to read every day, and we will also continue to listen to audiobooks together. I've also been reading a series by Eager out loud to the boys. We're going to read Australia, Begin Teaching, Classes, and Dreams (Life of Fred) together. Oliver will work through Fix it Grammar: The Nose Tree while his siblings will use Chanticleer instead. A few of the read aloud books for this year will include: The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Nelson Mandela’s African Folktales, Macbeth, Henry V, Wulf the Saxon, Midwife’s Apprentice, Morning Star of the Reformation, Catherine, called Birdy, A Single Shard (reread), Henry IV, Mad Wolf’s Daughter, and Hunt for Mad Wolf’s Daughter.

Bible - We will memorize the book of Ephesians together. Ian and Nadia will memorize the required memory verses from Acts for their Bible quizzing team. I am going to be more involved this school year in making sure they are putting more time into studying the book of Acts, which hopefully means they will do better at quizzing. We will read the entire New Testament together and Word in Motion: New Testament by Rachael Carman and watch the corresponding videos. We are in the middle of Jesus: Awesome Power, Awesome Love (John 11-16), and we also plan to read Jesus: to Eternity and Beyond (John 17-21) and Becoming God's Champion (2 Timothy) by the same authors. We also plan to read the books Peril and Peace and Monks and Mystics. We will participate in food packing and other service projects.

Fourth Quarter

We will soon be entering the fourth quarter of our school year. Not counting field trip days, we have forty-eight days left of school this year. Oliver recently finished his handwriting textbook and his fourth Life of Fred book for this year (Dogs through Goldfish); when he finished Goldfish, we started doing math flashcards every day because he has forgotten some of the multiplication facts that he memorized last year. Nadia and Ian will finish Life of Fred Pre-Algebra 2 with Economics on March 7, and then they will be doing his Financial Choices book. Oliver finished his Flying Creatures science textbook and now has been working through the Swimming Creatures curriculum. Nadia and Ian finished the chemistry portion of their Physical Science textbook and have almost finished the physics chapters. The last section is focused on earth science. In history we have gone from Creation through about 400 BC so far. Next, they will be learning about Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates. We have about four hundred more years of history to cover before our school year draws to a close. In Bible, we have memorized James chapters 1-3 and will finish chapter four this week. That means we have one chapter left to memorize. Nadia is also working on memorizing all sixteen chapters of Romans. She's currently working on chapter ten. As for reading through the Old Testament, most of the rest of our school year we'll be reading Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. Nadia and Ian finished reading the JavaScript book; I am very happy to say that coding has been going much better this semester as they've been actually doing the Python programming exercises on the computer instead of just reading about it. Ian isn't a bookworm like Nadia, but he flew through the five books of the Evil Librarians series and is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the sixth book in the series in September. At the moment Oliver's two favorite authors are Dick King Smith and Mary Pope Osborne.

Because of my broken ankle, the kids didn't participate in the art, gym, drama, etc. classes that I had paid for them to take at the co-op in the fall. Now the kids are all taking ice skating lessons once a week, and right around the time those will end in March, they will begin taking homeschool gym classes for ten weeks at our church; the class meets once a week and lasts 90 minutes. Nadia is also participating in a drama class that meets for 75 minutes once a week. The week of their production they will meet for 7+ hours a day for five days in a row. During our last quarter of school, the kids will be doing a LOT more writing than they did during the first three quarters. Also, I want to give more attention to having them write more regularly in each of their Book of Centuries books. I had set a goal to start working through some of Shakespeare's works every school year starting this year. Aside from attending the Tempest last August, we haven't done so yet. That is also on my agenda for the fourth quarter. The good news is that they are MUCH shorter than Gulliver's Travels, which we finally finished today. Because of COVID, my broken ankle, and the weather, we haven't been on many field trips over the last four months, but that should drastically change starting in May. Although we've done very few field trips, we have been involved in service projects. The hygiene kits that we worked on yesterday will be headed to Haiti. 

This week Nadia is taking standardized tests for the third time in her life. In Pennsylvania homeschoolers are required to take tests in grades 3, 5, and 8. If I choose to hold Oliver back a grade, then none of my kids will be tested next year. There are various paths as far as homeschoolers receiving a HS diploma in Pennsylvania, and I've been contemplating which path to choose for Nadia. One of the options involves taking thirty credits of college coursework during high school. I'm also considering signing the kids up for a homeschool volleyball class in the fall at a YMCA. Life is full of so, so, so many decisions to make! 

First Quarter

Next year will be the first year I think I'll actually have to keep a gradebook so that I can issue report cards for Nadia as she will be in high school. There are several routes homeschoolers can take regarding earning a high school diploma. If, for example, she takes a certain number of college credits while she's in high school, then I wouldn't need to create report cards for her each marking period. Since she has no idea at this point what she might want to study if she went to college, I assume at least in the beginning I should keep a record to keep more options open. Our local school district is having parent teacher conferences today and tomorrow, which usually take place near the end of the first quarter. Today was our 63rd day of school (out of 180), but a large percentage of those were field trip days. I think in terms of days when we do math, spelling, science, etc., we will have completed 1/4th of the curriculum for this school year on November 11. Here's a summary of what we've been up to so far this school year:

Bible - We've memorized the first chapter of James together. Nadia has also memorized all of Romans 1

and most of Romans 2 for Bible quizzing. We've read all of 1 Kings and will finish 2 Kings and Proverbs on November 10. We've finished two inductive Bible studies on the book of Genesis and are more than half way through our third one, which is over chapters 11-25.  

Spelling - Ian is in his last year of the spelling curriculum (level 7); spelling is a breeze for him. Spelling is a little bit harder for Oliver, but he's working through level 3 this year. 

Handwriting - I periodically require Nadia and Ian to copy something related to what we're studying in history in cursive. It takes Ian a VERY long time, but he has beautiful handwriting. Oliver is the only one working through a cursive textbook this year. 

Grammar - Nadia and Ian are working through Little Mermaid (Fix it Grammar) together. To make it a bit easier, I've been letting them just verbally make the corrections and tell me the parts of speech. I haven't started this subject with Oliver yet. We haven't done much writing yet this school year. 

Music - This is going very well for all three kids! Oliver is making great strides in his first piano books, and Nadia has come a long way with learning to play the flute. I love listening to Ian practice the piano; he's in level 6.

Coding - Nadia and Ian are working through a JavaScript textbook. They need to put more time into completing the challenges on the computer. 

History - We're using Mystery of History this year and are studying from Creation through the time of Christ. History and Bible are the only two subjects all three kids do together. Some of the audiobooks we listen to together correlate with what we are studying in history. This is our first year of each child having a Book of Centuries. So far so good! 

Science - Nadia and Ian are studying physical science. Hopefully their scores will improve on future tests. Paul is helping with some of their labs. The only two subjects where Nadia and Ian are graded at all are math and science. I have yet to grade anything Oliver has done. Oliver is studying flying creatures this semester. 

Math - Nadia and Ian are working through Life of Fred: Pre-Algebra 1 while Oliver has almost finished Life of Fred: Dogs. Nadia completed lesson 26 in the

Saxon Algebra I book today; she did very well on one test, but in general it has been a challenge for her. Ian is using Teaching Textbooks for the very first time (Math 7), and he loves it. It's the first time he's worked on math without much assistance from me, but it takes him a VERY long time. Oliver is working through the 2C book of Beast Academy now.

Reading - We continue to enjoying listening to audiobooks together seven days a week; we finished 35 books over the past four months. The three we are listening to now are The Last Battle, The Way of the Wilderking, and Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians. The kids also read independently every school day. Nadia definitely reads the most. Some books that Ian has recently enjoyed reading have included Detectives in Togas, Mystery of the Roman Ransom, and the Heartwood Hotel series. He also recently started reading the first Harry Potter book. Oliver has been reading Imagination Station and Magic Tree House books.

Spanish - All five of us have been using the Duolingo app on a

regular basis. Nadia has been putting the most time into learning Spanish. When we used Talkbox.mom last year we actually used Spanish more throughout the day. It feels like we are spending more time learning Spanish but use it far less. Hopefully at some point during this school year the Spanish we are learning will be used throughout the day. Personally, my ability to understand Spanish is far better than my ability to speak it. For example, conjugating in the preterite tense is very hard for me right now.

We haven't done much with keyboarding, creative writing, art, or gym yet this school year. This is partly due to the fact I had signed the kids up for co-op classes, but we haven't been able to attend the classes due to my broken ankle. I'm planning to sign the kids up for a homeschool gym class starting in January. Oliver might join the kids' choir at our church at some point this year as the choir was restarted in September for the first time since March 2020. Nadia is signed up to be in a drama class starting in January. School has been taking longer than I would like it to for Ian. He takes at least an hour to eat breakfast and at least an hour to eat lunch, and he struggles with staying focused when he's doing his work. I am hoping that he will show improvement in his ability to be be more efficient and stay focused during the school year so that it won't take so many hours for him to finish his work. I know he'd like to have more time to play with Legos, read for leisure, etc. Thankfully, homeschooling is something I can still do while sitting with my foot elevated. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to teach my three children!

Back to "school"

Although we've already logged several days of school through field trips and such, we're calling today our first day of school for the 2021-22 school year because it's the first day we're breaking open spelling books, math books, etc. This is our ninth year of homeschooling. I already felt 100% convinced this was the best choice for our family, but COVID has only reinforced that decision. I'm very thankful my kids don't need to wear masks while doing their schoolwork. 

Here are some things that we are continuing from past years:

1. Nadia and Ian are still doing grammar together using Fix it Grammar from IEW.
2. Ian and Oliver are still using All About Spelling (level 7 for Ian and level 4 for Oliver).
3. All three kids will complete some pages from All About Homophones (Ian and Nadia do it together, and Oliver does different pages).
4. Oliver is still using Handwriting without Tears to complete his 2nd cursive textbook. Nadia and Ian will be required to copy a few passages from Draw Through History in cursive throughout the year.
5. We will finish reading through the Old Testament this school year. As for Bible memory, we're memorizing the book of James plus some selected verses from Romans.
6. All three kids will read chapter books independently each day. They will need to pick books from a list I have created for each of them. Most of the books relate to what we are studying in history.
7. We're still using Apologia science textbooks. Oliver will be studying animals that fly and animals that swim. Ian and Nadia will be completing an 8th grade Physical Science textbook.
8. Most years we've gone on a lot of field trips. That wasn't the case last year, but I believe it will be the case again this year! This includes earning a lot of Junior Ranger badges at National Park sites. 
9. We'll keep listening to audiobooks together through Overdrive and Audible.
10. We took a break from IEW last year, but we're resuming that this year, and it will be Oliver's first time using the curriculum. Last year we spent a lot more time on art and not as much on creative writing. The kids type their final products which is how we incorporate keyboarding into the school year. The writing topics also correlate to what we are studying in history.
11. We're still using Life of Fred to supplement math. Ian and Nadia work through the same books together and Oliver does different books.
12. We will continue to work through inductive Bible studies together.
13. Ian will continue his piano lessons with me.

Here are some things we are doing differently this year:

1. Last year we used Talkbox.mom for Spanish. This worked really well for the first couple of boxes and then wasn't as successful. The plan this year is that each child will be required to earn at least one crown on the Duolingo app each school day, and also each child at the start of the week will pick one phrase from the Talkbox.mom book that they will try to help all four of us use throughout the week. I personally try to earn at least five crowns a day on the Duolingo app on my phone. 
2. I really, really want to do better with completing more of the demonstrations and experiments in science. This is a high priority for me this year. Hopefully it will actually happen this time!
3. We're signed up to be in a co-op on Tuesday afternoons for the fall semester, and Nadia will continue to have a drama class there in the spring semester. We haven't been in a homeschool gym class since the early part of 2019, but I'm planning on signing the kids up for the gym class at our church starting in January of 2022. It's been awhile since we've been in a co-op. Oliver was in the nursery the last time we did one so we shall see if we like it enough to continue in future years or not. I'm not signing Nadia up for voice lessons this school year like she did last year.
4. I'm going to quiz Nadia and Ian on questions from the Bible quizzing question database every school day over Romans and James.
5. Oliver will start taking piano lessons with me.
6. Ian and Nadia will begin working through two coding books (starting with Python and JavaScript).
7. Nadia took a photography course last year but didn't actually get a lot of practice with shooting in manual on a DSLR. I am going to let her use my old camera body plus one lens on our vacation and hopefully that will be the beginning of her getting more practice with shooting in manual.
8. Although we're still doing the same five year cycle in history, we're using Mystery of History this year instead of Story of the World that we used for four years in the past. We're still supplementing with many library books and books we own (picture books, chapter books, and nonfiction). This year we're doing from Creation to the time of Christ, which is slightly different than five years ago when we did Creation to the Greeks. I have many new books in the plans, but we're also rereading some of the best ones that we read five years ago.
9. It took me almost all summer to decide, but the plan for now is that Nadia will do Saxon Algebra I (her first time with a traditional textbook in a few years), Ian will do Teaching Textbooks grade 7 (first time for him to do math on a computer), and Oliver will do Beast Academy (2B, 2C, 2D, 3A, and 3B). My goal for him is to finish 5D by the end of 6th grade. All three kids really need to work on their problem solving skills - especially Oliver as his are about nonexistent at this point.
10. None of my kids have read any Shakespeare thus far. This year we plan on beginning to read some of his writings, and we plan to continue that in the years to come. Now that Nadia is in 8th grade I feel the need to make sure we've listened to (or the kids have read independently) many classic pieces of literature.
11. I purchased a book of centuries for each child. They will use them over the next four years to record with sentences and also artwork - sort of a timeline in a book. I don't usually keep much of their schoolwork, after the year is over, but I'm hoping they will save these for years to come.

Here's to hoping and praying that my 4th, 6th, and 8th graders all have a great school year!!! I'm very, very thankful I have the privilege of homeschooling them. Next year I will need to grade far more of Nadia's work  as I'll have to actually create a report card for her each quarter. This year I'm only planning on grading her work in science and math. Although I don't put a lot of stock in grades, I do want my kids to strive to do their very best in whatever task they are doing. 

Last Day of School!

Today is officially our last day of school. Tomorrow afternoon we will have our annual evaluation and the boys will take the Woodcock Johnson test. Our previous evaluations were done by homeschool moms that we already knew. This will be our first one done by someone who doesn't already know us. It's possible our paths crossed in the past at some point as she was an adjunct professor in the special education department at Bloomsburg University, which is the same university where I taught for 10 years. Here are some of the highlights of our school year:

1. Oliver learned how to write his uppercase and lowercase letters in cursive.

2. Nadia completed a science textbook independently for the first time. She and Ian had done science with me the last several years. She also took tests in science for the first time. Her study skills improved over the course of the year, and she ended on a high note by achieving a 100% on her last test!

3. The kids completed 47 different art projects through Creating a Masterpiece that included a wide variety of media - ink, charcoal, pencil, colored pencil, pastels, watercolor, etc. 

4. Nadia completed a Personal Finance course by Dave Ramsey as well as a photography course by Kyle Schultz.

5. We memorized Matthew chapters 5-7, read half of the Old Testament, learned about various religions and cults, and completed seven inductive Bible study workbooks together. 

6. Ian and Nadia learned to identify all of the countries of the world on a map with 100% accuracy, all of the provinces of Canada, and almost all of the capitals of the world (all except for some islands in the Caribbean and in Oceania) using Seterra.com. 

7. Ian finished level 5 and and made progress in the level 6 recital and lesson books of Alfred's Basic Piano Course. Nadia had weekly private voice lessons via Zoom through Susquehanna University, and she participated in two theatre productions via Zoom - Nancy Blue and Bad Auditions by Bad Actors.

8. All three kids learned more Spanish vocabulary through curriculum from Talkbox.mom, and Nadia participated in a bi-weekly ASL class through the Public Library for Union County on Zoom during the second semester.

9. We watched one episode of World Watch News each day (M-F), celebrated 16 holidays from around the world, read at least 542 picture or nonfiction books from the library (most related to social studies and a few related to science), and tried 149 new foods from around the world.

10. We listened to 129 chapter books together (I read a few of those aloud but mostly they were audiobooks). Nadia read more than 65 chapter books (six of which were each over 500 pages long). Ian read at least 51 chapter books. Oliver transitioned from reading easy readers out loud to reading chapter books silently this year. He read 16 chapter books.

11. The kids earned 27 junior ranger badges through National Parks during the school year.

12. Oliver is making good progress with learning his multiplication facts. My goal is that he knows them all by the end of May.

13. We went on far fewer field trips this year. Most of them took place during our vacation in October and some were virtual field trips. Many were outdoors. Still we have been on 22 field trips this school year and have plans for nine more in May and June. In Pennsylvania the school year for homeschoolers can start as early as July 1 and must end no later than the end of June. 

14. Nadia and Ian wrote several different types of poems for the first time (haiku, diamante, cinquain, acrostic, limerick, and shape). They also wrote several fairy tales in which they changed the setting to a different continent. For example, Nadia wrote a Chinese version of Cinderella. Finally, Nadia and Ian each researched twelve countries and wrote 5-7 paragraphs about each country.

15. Usually I have a lot to document for physical education - homeschool gym class, ice skating lessons, Upward basketball, etc. This year the kids only had about three homeschool gym classes (outdoors), went skiing once, and went swimming quite a bit in July and August. They (especially Oliver) ride bikes, scooters, and rollerblades on a regular basis and sometimes take a walk with me. All three kids are registered for 8 hours of tennis lessons next week. I am open to registering them for another week or two of lessons in May if they are interested in doing that. 

Although I thoroughly enjoy homeschooling my children, I also enjoy the summer break. With my "extra" time I'm planning on going for more walks, listening to more audiobooks, making progress in the videography course, making progress with learning to speak Spanish, finishing planning our fall vacation, and finishing planning out the next school year. I also want to give using the Instant Pot another whirl as it's just been sitting in the basement. Although I've had weeks where I only had the boys at home and Nadia was at camp, it's been much rarer for me to only have Nadia at home, but that will be the case the end of June when the boys are at overnight camp together. Nadia and I are already making plans to make that "Mom, Nadia, and Milo week" special. Nadia will be spending a few days in Maryland with her cousins in May, going to Indiana and Oklahoma for Bible quizzing events in May and June, and will spend a week at overnight girl's camp the first week of August, so I'm thankful that I'll have a week with extra mom and daughter time since she'll be away from home for three weeks total this summer.

Good Friday

Paul remarked that is surprising that some public schools still schedule their spring break to be around the time of Good Friday and Easter. Obviously they don't go so far as to call it an "Easter break," Since we weren't doing something really special this spring break (ex. spending it in Chicago with Wendy's family), I wanted there to be at least one special thing each day. Yesterday it was the trip to Kaos for laser tag, trampoline park, and arcades for two hours. We brought two neighbors with us, and Micah and Isaiah were also there with some of their cousins. Nadia liked the laser tag so much that she played three games, which translates to a full hour of laser tag. The other four children I brought played one game of laser tag and then jumped on the trampolines for about twenty minutes before declaring they needed a break and wanted to buy some Gatorade. During the second hour all of the kids played arcade games. A homeschool group has it set up so that the two hours only costs $10 per child. Our trampoline has been off limit because of a tear in the mat. 

The only thing on our calendar today was getting Milo's pre-surgical bloodwork so I decided to give the kids their Easter gifts on Good Friday to help make today special. We watched a Good Friday broadcast this evening. I made an Italian dish called an Easter meat pie for dinner. Ian didn't have any because it includes a lot of ricotta cheese, which he doesn't like. Tomorrow I'm planning to take the kids to two egg hunts. It's been very cold the last two days (had snow flurries yesterday!), but it's supposed to be a little warmer tomorrow and even nicer on Sunday. Tomorrow we're going to have a Spanish dish often served at Easter- torrijas (the Spanish version of French toast). On Sunday morning we're going to have hot cross buns. go to church, and then in the afternoon Yvonne's family is coming to our house for a few hours! I thought we were going to end up having another holiday that we celebrated with only our immediate family, but Yvonne and I made plans for them to come up a couple of days ago. Since they lived in a Muslim country for about fifteen years, they aren't accustomed to eating ham. I had already bought the sweet potatoes, ham, etc., but we're just going to push that meal off a day or two. Both families really, really like rigatoni and meatballs. It's not a traditional meal to serve on Easter, but why not if everyone likes it? I haven't made it for several months. To make the meal a little more special, I'm also going to make focaccia bread. My kids love focaccia bread. I haven't made it for Yvonne's family before, but I think they'll like it. For dessert I'm planning to try a lemon cookie recipe a friend gave me recently. Seeing their cousins will be a very, very special treat on Sunday! The last special thing planned for Easter Sunday will be to watch the first episode of The Chosen season 2 at 8pm! We loved seeing season one last year and have been eagerly anticipating season two, which will focus on Jesus' early ministry. They are hoping to eventually have a total of seven seasons!!

Since the kids didn't have school yesterday and today, I had more free time. Yesterday I started doing some planning for the next school year. Yesterday I came up with a plan so that I can finish reading the Old Testament with the kids. I skipped a few chapters that are just lists of names and all of Song of Solomon, but otherwise we will have gone through the Old Testament together for the second time. I also spent some time working on our homeschooling portfolio yesterday to show at our evaluation on May 1. Today I worked on Life of Fred plans for Nadia and Ian for next year, began selecting some read alouds for next year, and ordered some textbooks for next year. I haven't decided what I'll use for Algebra I for Nadia or 6th grade math for Ian yet. I also need to give more thought to what the boys will do in science next year. I've started a list of books I plan to request by ILL through the public library during the next school year. Field trips may still be very challenging to plan in advance, but I can start choosing read alouds or books I want the kids to read independently to supplement our study of ancient history. 

I haven't decided what we'll do to try to make Monday special, but on Tuesday we're planning to join some homeschoolers at a park. It's been chilly this week, but next week the temps are supposed to be back into the low 60's, which means I should be getting more exercise next week than I've gotten this week. The most important gift to focus on this weekend is definitely Jesus giving his life for my sins. His love is more than we can ever comprehend. Here are some lines from one of my favorite hymns.

1. "Could we with ink the ocean fill,
   And were the skies of parchment made,
   Were every stalk on earth a quill,
   And every man a scribe by trade;
   To write the love of God above
   Would drain the ocean dry;
   Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
   Though stretched from sky to sky."

Evaluations

In Pennsylvania when I first started homeschooling the law stated that children who were eight years old or older needed to be evaluated each year, and that those in grades 3, 5, and 8 needed to be tested. The law changed to a lower age, but the change didn't impact our family because Oliver turned eight the year it went into effect. Because of COVID-19, homeschoolers didn't have to be evaluated or tested in 2020. Since my kids were in grades 2, 4, and 6 last spring, they weren't due for a test anyhow. Nadia was evaluated in 2017 and Nadia and Ian were both evaluated in 2018 and 2019. The evaluations aren't a big deal to me, but I was really hoping that the testing requirement would be waived again this spring since the pandemic certainly isn't over yet. Our state requested another waiver, but the Biden administration said the school districts MUST conduct their state testing this year even though some schools have not yet resumed meeting in person. I'm not a big fan of standardized testing in general, and I haven't found it to be helpful with my children thus far. Nadia took a standardized test at Camp Susque in 2017. Nadia and Ian both took the MAP Growth test online in 2019. I had been planning to use the MAP Growth test for Oliver and Ian this year, but I've made other arrangements. The evaluators I used from 2017-2019 are only certified for K-6th grade, which means I need someone else to evaluate Nadia this year. I ended up picking a woman in Bloomsburg, and the price she charges to administer the Woodcock Johnson was less than what it costs to do the MAP Growth online. We are scheduled to be at her house from 1-4pm on May 1st during which time she'll look at the portfolio and other documentation for all three kids plus administer the WJ-IV for Ian and Oliver. 

Thinking about possibly visiting three different Six Flags parks for the first time sometime this summer (May-July) lead me to consider visiting some other places in conjunction with those trips. Some of these places are already open but 5 of the 6 National Parks are not open at the moment. I'm hoping some (or all) of them will open sometime over the next four months. If so, I'm thinking we could do a one day trip to Six Flags America in Maryland (primarily to spend time with cousins), and a one day trip to the Buffalo area to visit the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural site plus Six Flags Darien Lake. We could also have a two day trip to The Great Escape plus possibly four National Parks (if they reopen) - Martin van Buren plus three in Hyde Park. Lastly, we could take a three day trip to Springfield, MA to visit Six Flags New England, Old Sturbridge Village, the Springfield Armory (if it reopens), and the Springfield Museums. Most of these sites had been included in the vacation plans for fall 2023. If we are able to visit them this year then I think we can add other things to the fall 2023 trip - the Weir Farm and PEZ factory in CT, Acadia National Park in ME, Quebec City, and three sites in Rhode Island (Newport Mansions, Roger Williams Monument, and John Brown House museum). The one member of our family who would NOT like these plans if he could comprehend them would be Milo. The only thing on our calendar thus for as far as amusement parks was Knoebels in May, and they are very pet friendly. I was planning on bringing Milo along. Pets aren't allowed at Six Flags. I'm thinking we could offer to pay Micah and Isaiah $10 a day to pet sit Milo when we go on these one, two or three day trips. We are planning to take Milo with us to Long Island in July, and if we go on our vacation in the fall, he'll have to stay with someone else for 3.5 weeks. 

Goal Check-up

In four days we'll be entering the third month of the year so I thought I'd take the time to reflect on how we're doing with the 21 goals I set for 2021.

1. Paul took Oliver on a date this month. I told Oliver recently that when he learns all his times tables, he will earn an extra date with the parent of his choosing. Nadia and Ian are eagerly anticipating their dates.

2. We haven't been making much progress with increasing our use of Spanish. We need to get in gear!

3. The kids each earned one Junior Ranger badge in January, and they've earned four so far this month.

4. We memorized Matthew 6 over the last two months!

5. Nadia and Ian have each been cooking one dinner per week. For example, Nadia made beef noodle bake yesterday, and Ian will be making ham and cheese Stromboli on Saturday. 

6. Oliver did finish his cursive handwriting book. 

7. Nadia and Ian learned the location and capitals of all the countries in Europe and Oceania. They are working on Asia now. 

8. Milo has learned to obey a few commands (sit, down, leash, and come). If he wears a belly band, he only goes to the bathroom outside. He still tries to eat things he shouldn't (facial tissues are one of his favorites), but in general he's doing better with only chewing his toys. He's also doing better with not biting/nipping us as much, and in general he's doing better with not begging during meals.

9.  I haven't been completely regular with exercise, but I'm going in the right direction. Yesterday it got up to the low 50's!!! I took Milo on a 2.7 mile walk, and he actually had me running part of the time! I think he's going to be an excellent exercise buddy for me once the weather gets warmer. 

10. The kids have been doing art with Creating a Masterpiece three times a week lately. This week the kids did a pastel project (of hydrangeas) on Tuesday and started a colored pencil project (of a lion cub) today that they will finish tomorrow.

11. The kids and I finished Numbers, read all of Deuteronomy, more of Psalms, and we're nearing the end of Joshua. In our family devotions we've been studying Daniel for two months. We're about to start chapter 10 today. It's been the kids' first introduction to future prophecies. 

12. We've tried 33 new recipes so far in 2021. Over the next few days I'm planning on making Serbian potato moussaka, Hamantaschen, and phyllo meat pie for the first time.

We haven't made any progress toward the other nine goals yet. This week I decided to add another goal to the list even though that means I have 22 goals for 2021, ha ha. I have started a course to learn how to create cinematic home videos! Just as I have improved with my photography skills over the years, now I'm going to learn how to make MUCH nicer videos. I'm very excited about tackling this challenge after seeing what others have created! Hopefully I can create some videos that our family will treasure for years to come. 

Pumpkin Time

 

Peppa often licks Nadia's face - so sweet!

While we were on vacation I got Nadia a pumpkin at Aldi for her to carve. The kids are generally NOT fans of scooping the pulp and seeds out of the pumpkins, and so I thought maybe we'd just do one pumpkin this year. Nadia is supposed to bring a carved pumpkin to the cast party this Friday night. Amazon delivered the goodies I ordered last week for our Christmas shoe boxes - stuffed animals, calculators, glue sticks, soap, marbles, jump ropes, etc. As we started filling our five boxes, we realized we needed to buy some more things. We thankfully had finished our schoolwork before lunch today. Usually there is at least one child still doing schoolwork until about 2pm. So we headed to the Dollar Tree after lunch to buy more things for our shoe boxes. I also went across the street to the grocery store to buy a couple of things and saw they had all their pumpkins on sale for $2. I asked the boys if they wanted to carve a pumpkin this year. Ian wasn't interested, but Oliver wanted one. So after we finished packing our shoe boxes, we worked on carving two pumpkins. Since Oliver really, really likes

Paw Patrol, Ian suggested a Paw Patrol badge. Nadia made a scared face on her pumpkin. She carved the mouth. I carved her eyes and the paw print on Oliver's pumpkin. They both helped with scooping out the pulp and seeds. 

I don't create report cards for my kids. I will probably start keeping track of Nadia's grades next year, which is one year earlier than I am required to do so. If I was making report cards, I think we would have completed our first marking period because we started school a little over two months ago. Today was technically our 71st day out of the 180, but some of those were from this summer or field trips so we we're only about 1/4th of the way through the curriculum. I'm not going to record an analysis of each child in every subject but rather I thought I'd make a list of some of my favorite resources (in no particular order):

1. Audiobooks -We use either Audible, Hoopla, or Overdrive every day to listen to audiobooks. Right now we're listening to The Brooklyn Bridge by Karen Hesse and Daring to Hope by Katie

Davis Majors. 

2. World Watch News - We watch this about 10 minute news broadcast once a day M-F. I think it's great!

3. Seterra Geography - This is a website that the kids use to learn the countries of the world and the capitals of some of the countries. They have a wide assortment of map quizzes. So far Nadia and Ian have passed the ones for the provinces of Canada, all of the countries of North and South America, and the capitals of most of the countries in the western Hemisphere (didn't have them learn the capitals of the islands in the Caribbean) 

4. Life of Fred - We love this series of math books! Math is the subject we have been spending the most time on this year. Nadia has been doing two math lessons a day through Teaching Textbooks because she wants to work through both Math 7 and Pre-Algebra this year. We use Life of Fred as a supplement. We're in the Fractions book now, and I really like the extra problems they give in what

he calls the Bridge. After completing five lessons they have to pass a bridge to move on to the next lesson. The books are very humorous and include concepts from many other facets of life.

5. Beast Academy - Oliver is currently in 2A, and Ian recently started 5B. This is a challenging curriculum but really excellent at fostering creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving skills.

6. Creating a Masterpiece - I'm thankful I signed up for another subscription that gives us access to a wide array of art lessons. This week Nadia is taking two art classes by Zoom through the Berks Youth Chorus, but most weeks our art will be through Creating a Masterpiece. 

7. Sermon on the Mount - I'm glad the kids have been able to participate in AWANA in the past, but I have to say I prefer memorizing one bigger chunk of Scripture over memorizing a verse here and another verse there. So far we've memorized Matthew 5:1-18 together. We're planning to

memorize chapters 5-7 by the end of our school year. 

8. Talkbox.mom - This is a fun way to learn another language! For example, today we played a memory game about the sounds that animals make in Spanish. We are actually making progress with using Spanish throughout the day. When we were doing the service project last week, I was counting "uno, dos, tres" many times as we were putting the rice, beans, and vegetables into the meal bags, and then after the third one I'd say "bien hecho" (good job). All three kids definitely learned that phrase that day! Each day I try to add at least one phrase to my repertoire. Yesterday I worked on using "ven aqui" or "vengan aqui" (come here in both singular and plural).  

9. Public libraries - In addition to getting audiobooks for free, we also check out books from two different library systems - picture books, chapter books for the kids, and books for me as well. I'm really, really hoping that the libraries don't shut down again due to COVID-19. 

10. All About Spelling - Some of the resources on this list are ones we are using for the first time this year such as World Watch News, Talkbox.mom, and Seterra's website. Others on this list we've been using since I began homeschooling Nadia in 2013. AAS is one of the resources we've been using the entire time. Nadia finished the curriculum in the spring, but Ian is in Level 6, and Oliver is in Level 3.

11. Fix It Grammar - I think this is a quick and excellent way to cover a little grammar each day. Nadia and Ian are in the third book (Frog Prince). Today for example we talked about the difference between affect and effect.