End of school 2013!!

 Last week we officially finished our second year of homeschooling! It has been a busy year of learning for the entire family! To be honest, some days are incredibly difficult and frustrating. Overall, however, we are so grateful for the blessing to learn as a family and watch Luke and Ben thrive in this home learning environment. Here is a few pictures of our last few weeks of school, and a brief review of the various curricula we used this year. Hint: we will not be changing much next year!!

For reading and writing we started out the year with IEW's PAL program which we began the previous year. We also used Explode the Code phonics workbooks and Sonlight readers. We ended up finishing the PAL reading, but stopped after the second portion of the writing. I felt like the boys needed something more to help teach the mechanics of writing and grammar before we moved on with PAL. I found and fell in love with Essentials in Writing. For the elementary years it is a writing program (much like Math U See) with DVD instruction including grammar. The boys have thrived on this writing program. Next year we will likely mix the next level of EIW with IEW PAL. (Too many acronyms!!!) We will also finish up the 2nd grade readers and move into the 3rd grade Sonlight readers mixed with lots of library books for reading.

Luke and Ben both completed the first level of All About Spelling. We are so proud of our awesome spellers! We will definitly be using AAS next year. We love it! Next year we will also continue on with A Reason For Handwriting and finish up books #7 and #8 of Explode the Code to finish out our Language Arts curriculum.

Luke has a book of simple science experiments. Now that school is over Luke pulled out his science book and has been trying to find ones that he can do own his own with limited materials. Here is one he did to study the effects of wicking water from a glass to a bowl.

As we finished up our study of stars and constellations the boys got a chance to make their own planetarium show, punching holes in the shapes of constellations in a box and then lighting them up with a flashlight.

Our last chapter of our Apologia science was on space travel. The boys (with some help from Mommy) got to calculate how old they would be if they were able to travel to each planet and back. (48 and 49 years old!) Then they had to work as a team to build their own Space Station.

The boys LOVED this activity, and named their Station, ANS (American National Station).

When we first decided to use Apologia this year I was a bit leary. Study Astronomy for an entire year??? That did not exactly sound like fun to me. Well, Apologia has proven this Mommy wrong. The ability to study one subject all year has really given the boys such a love of science. In fact, at the moment we have two sons who intend on working for NASA when they grow up! :) Not only that, it has given our entire family a new appreciation for God's handiwork in the heavens!

When I gave the boys the option to study Apologia next year or try something different with a broader scope, the answer was unanimous: Apologia! We will be starting the first of three books devoted to studying animals, Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day: Exploring Creation with Zoology 1.  The boys can't wait!

If it was just up to me, I would be inclined to just read the book and skip the experiments. This year though, our entire family has had fun with our various science experiments. As I mentioned in a previous post, buying the kit with all the materials ahead of time was worth every penny! We will definitely be purchasing a kit for next year too!

The boys have continued to plug along with our Math U See. We have a few more lessons to complete Alpha before we move onto Beta next year. We will probably keep up with the math over the summer to keep it fresh.

Here is a funny picture of Ben's math homework one day. He needed help with a word problem so this is the note he wrote me:

Although, not as much fun as science, MUS has been very effective for both of the boys and we will be continuting on with MUS next year. One thing we will not continue with is the Life of Fred Elementary Math series. These books were intended to be fun and show how math is practical in every day life. The boys didn't object to the books, but most of the humor was over their heads, and neither of the boys looked forward to what was supposed to be a fun reading. Maybe they will enjoy these as they get older, but they were just not for us this year.

We also finished up our Tapestry of Grace studies. We finished up our study of Ancient Rome and began to talk about the fall of Rome.

Here the kids are enjoying a "Roman style" picnic lunch, eating while lying down!

We had read about Roman family meals where the Father lies on a couch and all the children and wife sit at his feet......but we decided to eat as guests would in a Roman house instead! :)

When we were learning about popular Roman foods the boys saw a picture of an artichoke and wanted to know what it tasted like. I had never cooked one so we looked it up online and all got to try it!

All of the kids (except Jacob, who refused to try it) loved the artichoke!

The kids have all asked to make artichokes again sometime. I must admit, although good, it was a whole lot of work for very little to eat!

In the midst of learning about the Roman Empire, we were also leaning a lot about the early Christian Church. The boys loved learning about the early ΙΧΘΥΣ, "fish" symbol for the Church. Here they are practicing drawing the symbol. We have loved how seemless it has been to study World and Biblical History side by side this year rather than as separate subjects.

Of course no study of Rome would be complete without making some togas out of shower curtains!

 It probably goes without saying how much we adore Tapestry of Grace in this house. We have all had so much fun learning together. There is no perfect curriculum, but for our family we are completely in love with Tapestry of Grace. I am actually looking foward to four years from now when we get to go through this period of history again when Gracie and Jacob will be school aged, and then again when the boys are in high school. I know that each cycle we will learn more, but it will build upon the memories they have made this year. It is amazing to watch our children falling in love with God's beautiful plan throughout history woven through all lands, peoples, empires and cultures.

Next year we will pick up where we left off in the Fall of Rome and beginning of the Middle Ages. Year 2 will actually take us all the way up through the American Revolution! We can hardly wait to get started! On Friday when I told the boys it was our last day of school for this year, both boys asked if we could start our next year on Monday! I guess that shows just how much they have enjoyed it! This year we added in tons of extra chapter read alouds from Sonlight suggestions. We loved every single one! We will continue to add in as many Sonlight read alouds as we can throughout the summer and next year. So many good books to read, so little time!

We will be continuing on with Artistic Pursuits (which we loved) next year. I will be adding in some music appreciation, typing and hopefully Latin too! Stay tuned!

This year we focused on memorizing the books of the Old Testament and next year we will add in the New Testament. Here are the boys sharing what they have learned, and for fun Jacob trying to keep up with the big boys!

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