Wrapping Up the 2016/2017 School Year

I meant to get this posted over the week-end, but we have been very busy digging a hole.  Yes, digging a hole.  We are moving the swimming pole from the concrete pad down to the back yard so the children can still play basketball and ride bikes.  Plus I will have more shade to sit under to watch them swim.  The bad thing is that our yard is not level so we had to dig a hole.  The boys started digging with their daddy one day last week, and I joined in the fun starting Saturday afternoon. It has been a lot of hard work!The good news is that we are almost done with this project.  The digging is finished and we have about 2 more loads of sand to put back in.  Then the pool can go up!

We have completed another homeschool year!  Our first day of school was August 29th and we have counted 34 weeks in this year.  Our state does not require us to complete or count a certain number of days.  Sometimes when you are dealing with day to day struggles such as math or reading difficulties, it can be easy to get caught up in the struggles and feel like you are not accomplishing anything.  But, when you look back and see how far they have come or how much they have learned in other areas you might just be surprised.

1st day of K

Last day of K

1st day of 2nd

Last day of 2nd

1st day of 4th

Last day of 4th

1st day of 5th

Last day of 5th

1st day of 7th

Last day of 7th

1st day of 9th

Last day of 9th

Since Nick started High School this year, he has been doing a separate curriculum from the rest of us, only joining in on Bible lessons in the morning.  He earned .5 credit in Bible, 1 credit in American History, 1 credit in Geometry, 1 credit in Physical Science, 1 credit in English 1, .5 credit in P.E., and .5 credit in Information Technology Fundamentals (possibly changed to a full credit if he finishes it over the summer.)


Emmie has completed 22 units in her K curriculum.  She has 4 more to do over the next couple of weeks.  She also started Math Lessons for a Living Education Book 1 about halfway through the school year because she wanted a real math book like everyone else.  She is halfway through that book.  She has been enjoying using an online supplementary curriculum over the last several weeks that focuses on math and reading and has completed several lessons every day.  Emmie also joined us for Poetry, Bible, and read aloud every day.

The others all worked together for many of their subjects.

Bible: This year we read through the gospels of Matthew and Mark and have started Luke. We also read Window on the World which is a book talking about the different religions in each country.  We also watched Drive Thru History-The Gospels. 

P.E.: We did yoga, Family Time Fitness, basketball, bike riding, and running.  The children said swimming will count for their PE this summer.

Poetry: We have memorized 18 poems of varying lengths this year using IEW Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization.

Read Aloud: For our morning read aloud time we read 6 missionary stories: Cameron Townsend, Amy Carmichael, David Livingstone, Nate Saint, Gladys Aylward, and William Booth. We also read the book Kingdom Tales and read a biography on Orville Wright.  In the afternoon we read several books including: Captain Absolutely, Shepherd, Potter, Spy, and the Star Namer, The 21 Balloons, Paddle to the Sea, Snow Treasure, The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, The Incredible Journey, and Mice of the Herring Bone.  We read several books in the evening including: The Terrestria Chronicles 1-4, The Green Ember, The Borrowers and The Borrowers Afield, The Tale of Despareaux,  The BFG, The Ruby Moon, Stuart Little, and others.

ECC: Our main curriculum this year was Exploring Countries and Cultures from MFW.  This covered our science and geography.  The science used Properties of Ecosystems as its main text along with Living World Encyclopedia.  As we studied each country we learned about the animals and types of land (desert, rainforest, prairie, etc...) types of water (rivers, lakes stream, etc..)Each country that we studied took about 2 weeks to complete and included: The United States, Canada, Brazil, Norway, France, Germany, Kenya, Saudi Arabia. India, China, Japan, Russia, Australia, and Antarctica.

building the Eiffel Tower out of LEGO

History: In addition to ECC, we did some history too.  We completed Project Passport Ancient Greece fro Home School in the Woods and read some of Famous Men of Rome.

Science: In addition to the science from ECC we also completed Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy.

Nature Study: Some of our nature study topics from this year included: butterflies, trees, pond, the winter sky, caring for orphaned baby flying squirrels (that didn't end well), insects, earthworms, the moon, and Candlemas.

Foreign Language: Alex did a semester of German.  We did some Spanish using Basketballs Aren't for Breakfast, and started some Latin from Memoria Press.

Art: We have done some really awesome art projects this year!  I tried to do at least one a week but did not get it in every week.  Some of my favorite projects have some from Creating a Masterpiece and I do hope to do a few more this summer before our subscription runs out.  The children's favorite projects have come from ArtAchieve and I hope to do some more of those this summer as well.

Language Arts:  Alex started out the year using All in one English and also did some Editor in Chief.  He recently started working on Lightning Literature 8 from Hewitt Homeschooling.  He will use it for a few more weeks and then set it aside until our next school year begins.

Anthony and Christian started out with Language Lessons for Today.  We finished that book several weeks ago. They also did some Fix It! Grammar Book 2.  Most recently they started Readers in Residence.  We completed the first book, Sarah Plain, and Tall and have stopped working on this until our next school year starts. 

Lily started out the year with Jolly Grammar.  When we had a review opportunity for Eclectic Foundations B we stopped using Jolly Grammar.  She has stopped working on Eclectic Foundations until the fall.

Spelling/Reading: The boys finished All About Spelling Level 3 and 8 lessons of Level 4.  The also finished All About Reading Level 4.  That is the highest level in this program.  They are also using the reading section of K 5 Learning.  Lily finished AAR Level 2 and has gotten halfway finished with AAR Level 3.  She is also doing K5.

Math: Alex is finished with Teaching textbooks 7 and has started on UnLock Pre-Algebra.  The others are still working through their levels of Math Lessons for a Living Education and will finish those this summer.   We did a review of Times Alive and also all of the children are working on the math section of K 5 learning.

I hope you had a great homeschool year!

Happy Homeschooling!

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