Another Year in Review

It is obvious that I am unable to keep up with two different blogs. I started a separate home school blog with intentions of getting more involved in the online home school community and thought that having them separate would facilitate that. Instead, I find that it just falls to the wayside. My life is separated into "school" "family" "church" and "other", so why should my writing life be separated? With that said, after this post, when we start our new school year mid-October, I am going to be posting school updates on my main blog, Miriam Pauline's Monologue. I may (or may not) remember to post a link from here for a while. I think all 3 or 4 of you who read here also read there so it shouldn't be a big issue.

All that said, this post is meant to put last year in review. We finished up our school year on September 10. In general we have had a wonderful year. Most of my goals were met, and we made some great memories along the way. Where we struggle just reminds me of why we home school--so we can go at their pace and meet their individual needs.

Jewel completed 1st Grade/Year 2 (US/UK equivalent). She is reading well beyond her age of seven years. I mean, just yesterday she read out of Acts for our family devotions and never missed a beat. During the course of the school year, in addition to the fictional stories assigned she has read aloud to me all of Genesis, all of Exodus, several Psalms, a couple chapters of Proverbs and all of Philippians. She loves to read and will spend hours curled up with a book--often it is her Bible that she is curled up and reading to Flower. We could get ten books a day from the library and she would stay caught up reading them. In the same vein, she loves history since it is reading based. This year we looked briefly at ancient civilizations then focused on Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. We have visited the mummy room at the British Museum, the Parthenon exhibit at the British Museum, and Roman ruins in England to add to the learning experience. Although she talks the most about our Roman studies (probably because she remembers going to Rome and seeing so much of the forum and palaces and such) it is Greece that enamours her. She is desperate to visit Greece so that may have to move up our list of places to go. Missionary stories, which form much of our history and geography core, fascinate her. We studied George Mueller this year and she could not get enough. She even had her daddy read another history of George Mueller as bedtime stories "so he could learn about George as well." We hope to get down to Bristol this autumn and visit Ashley Down. She also read a biography of Billy Graham with her daddy. I definitely see a heart for other people in her, so there are more missionary stories on the horizon. Science continues to go well with introductions to how the body works, how to stay healthy, and Pasteur's discoveries and work with bacteria. We didn't do as many science experiments as planned, but I plan to do better next year. Our slower area continues to be math but she is making tremendous progress, especially the last few weeks. It seems to be finally "clicking" with her. I am so thankful that we could slow down to her pace and allow her the chance to "get it" without totally losing her love of learning in the process. We didn't quite finish our math book during the school year, so we will just pick up where we left off and when she is ready move to the next level.

She continues to do exceedingly well in swimming and has started piano lessons where she is also making great progress. She attends a weekly group at the church as well and has lots of friends. All in all, she is doing well!

Flower and I have had a great time doing PreK/Reception work this year. We have read lots of fun stories and some great introduction to easy science and history. We looked at things that live under the sea, we learned about the smallest and largest things in the universe, we learned the months of the year and the days of the week. She has done terrifically with handwriting and can happily write just about anything you give her to copy or spell aloud to her. Her reading is coming along great. She is sounding out cvc words with little effort and spends much of her time when we are out attempting to read everything around her. She's really proud of herself for learning to read. She has also learned to ride a bicycle without training wheels/stabilisers this year. She is in the same swimming classes as Jewel and is totally able to keep up with her big sister. She isn't old enough to start piano yet, but Jewel "teaches" her when she is practicing and she is learning quite quickly!

Of course, the thing I love about Sonlight is the great books that we get to read. Here is a sampling of what we have read this year:
*A Year with Miss Agnes
*Mr. Popper's Penguins
*Henry Huggins
*Detectives in Togas
*Understood Betsy (and we made butter which was wonderful!)
*Follow My Leader
*Charlotte's Web
*Little Pear
*Mountain Born
*Homer Price (made doughnuts, yum!)

It's been a great year. We are enjoying a little time off before getting into it again. The new Cores are on the shelf waiting to be used. I'm really having to encourage the girls to wait, but we did need a break. Our annual eval is this week and then I'll be able to focus more on the next stage.

Weekly wrap-up, November 17-23

We had a great week last week. Jewel is getting so much more confident with math, and is plugging along with her addition facts. We have finally arrived at more concrete history studies in the curriculum (as opposed to social studies of people groups and housing). Jewel is fascinated with early history. She is asking lots of questions and is very engaged with the study which is great for her mommy/teacher. Her Bible memory work this week is John 3:16. Here, again, she is asking lots of questions about the Bible stories we read and the "Leading Little Ones to God" book. It is wonderful to see her work at putting it all together in her head.

Flower added two more letters (k and r) to the ones she has learned to write. She is so proud of herself when she learns something new. She was a little distracted this week during story time. I'm thinking she needs a short break.

Saturday we went to a stage production of "Seussical" a musical based on Dr. Seuss characters. It was really good. Flower was especially mesmerized. Then Sunday both girls were cast as angels for the upcoming church production and began learning how to sing "Away in a Manger." They are very cute, even if they are totally cast against character!

This week we are slowing down and just doing some Thanksgiving activities and some activities to complete our latest book Mr. Popper's Penguins. We'll go back to a light schedule next week, then spend the rest of December concentrating on Advent activities. They are ready for a lighter schedule for a little while.

Wrap Up--Week of November 2-8

Wow, I'm actually getting a wrap up done within a couple days of the completed week. What a concept!

We had a great week this week. It started on Sunday, when our family presented about our recent mission trip to Romania. (You can read more here, there are five posts in total) German and I led the service, Jewel and Flower sang with the praise band and then we hosted a typical Romanian meal afterwards. We had over eighty people stay for the meal and it was amazing. It was great to see the girls talking about the trip, remembering different aspects and placing things into context for others.

Monday began week six of our Sonlight year. We are nearing the more "meaty" part of the history and social studies in the curriculum. I'm so ready to get to ancient civilaztions! I would move quicker through what I consider tedious, but Jewel loves Usborne books and doesn't want to rush. Child led, MiPa, child led!

Monday night we went to visit friends who had their first baby on Friday evening. Flower, especially, was enthralled by the tiny hands and feet. He slept the whole time we were their, but I was able to enjoy the cuddles.

Reading is going well. She really loves that she is able to read the Bible to me. So cool! Flower is half-way through her first "Get Ready for the Code" book and is doing great. She has learned to write most of her letters and now we are beginning to work on more consistency.

Math is going so much smoother now that we have begun the Math*U*See curriculum. Jewel is finally getting to grips with basics such as place value and she now says that she loves math. We haven't heard that in a long time!

We finished reading Homer Price last night. The girls loved it. We will make doughnuts sometime next week to complete the experience. In Science this week in addition to continuing our study of flowers we completed a few water experiments that we had not been able to do before. We created a syphon to make water flow upwards. The girls were convinced that I would not be able to do it, but I did. Yay me! We are also changing the color of white carnations. Jewel's carnations in red food color are a beautiful pink color. Flower's in blue food color are beginning to tinge blue. Mine in green food color are still white. ;-( Oh well! Next week we will do similar experiments with celery to see how the water is taken up the stalk.

It should be a quiet weekend around here. Tomorrow the girls will present their current memory verse to someone at church. They have spent the last six weeks learning all of Psalm One. There is a young man at church that they love to tell their verses to, and he is so encouraging of them! Then we have our house group Bible Study. One of the families has two year old twins so the the girls love that.