Year 4: DONE

     I've been MIA for awhile.  A long while.  I feel like I should begin this particular post with a screen crawl saying, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...".  I had this silly notion that as the kids got older and were able to do more independent work that I'd have more time to do the things I wanted to do like keeping this blog current.  I was wrong (for the first time ever 😜)!  It seems that this year between my and the kids' activities (acting, piano, my classes and and personal studies, our marriage ministry and volunteering for American Heritage Girls) I had very little time to begin with.  So, something had to give and the only thing I could think of was this blog.

     I set out hoping to document what we learned every week, both for posterity and for record keeping purposes but as the weeks slowly passed I couldn't keep up and even turned to jotting down notes of what we did so that when I had the chance I could sit and write.  But even finding a moment to make those notes let alone remember what we did was becoming a difficult task.

     Which brings us to the end.  This is the conclusion of our fourth year of homeschooling (both of them; I started with my daughter when she was in Kindergarten).  We covered a lot, from Creation to Christ.  My daughter is practicing her cursive writing, my son is moving into Pre-Algebra.  We've read some wonderful books, though not many missionary ones as I would have liked to since we used Mystery of History this year. (We will be going back to My Father's World for year five, though.)

     We learned a lot about ancient history, sea animals and the weather, all of which seem like a blur to me as I was being inundated with facts about all of it during my day and then working on my own studies at night.  My kids, however, could rattle off more about the Old Testament than I or my husband ever could at their age and I'm thankful for that.  They are able to see the connection between the Old Testament and the New and all of our studies have lead to wonderful and deep discussions.

     They can diagram sentences and even find it fun.  They memorized poems learned how to amplify or summarize stories.  The only thing we did not complete was Latin.  Latin became a challenge for all of us.  I even purchased a pricey DVD thinking that it would help.  It didn't.  We're going to give Latin one more try with a different program and go from there.

     What next?  Well, we're on a break for six weeks which gives me just enough time to put away all the old stuff and prepare the new stuff.  I'm hoping to catch up on some reading that I've fallen behind on.  The kids will be doing some reading and math during their break.  I've even created a summer schedule for them:

     I know our summer is going to pass quickly.  We have a lot going on and this is our first time homeschooling year-round, so there's a bit of a learning curve as to the timing of it all.  I probably should have purchased the new school year's curriculum in the Spring, but how could I do that when I was trying to stay focused on the current year?  Besides, I have no where to store those glorious boxes of new books.

     I can't say much more about our year except that I'm thankful that God has blessed us, once again, with the ability and opportunity to homeschool and that my kids are both progressing in their own ways.  Our new school year is just around the corner.  I better get preppin'!