School update

This has got to be a first! We have stayed on schedule through the month of December. On second thought we always “stay on schedule” but we usually go to “Christmas School” immediately after November. Christmas school consists of making steady progress in the 3R’s, doing lots of Advent activities and field trips, baking, cleaning, shopping and catching up on any subjects that need extra work. We have traditionally taken a break from the week after Thanksgiving – New Years. We opted not to do that this year. We had a “hard” start to the school year. Stacia was born the very week that school began. I then had 3 weeks of bed-rest with eclampsia that hit post-partum. The girls left the week after that; which involved much adaptation at home. Given all these facts we are thrilled to find that we are only 2 weeks behind our public school counter-parts at this point in the school year. Whew – the kids deserve a round of applause. We continue to love having our entire family using “Tapestry of Grace” (www.tapestryofgrace.com). In addition to being a well-written academic program we’ve benefited from the depth of discussion added to our family through studying the same period “together”. We began using this program last year with our younger children and Josiah and Jamin (our high school students) joined us this year. *I* am learning a great amount as I discipline myself to read the weekly teacher notes. We began our school break yesterday and will resume school on 2 January 2006.

We have an incredible sense of accomplishment when we look back over the past 15 weeks. Sure, we could be further along, but we’ve come a long way. The older boys had to learn a totally new program. The younger ones have been making great strides in the areas of weakness we had pinpointed. We’re on track.

Highlights of our school since I last wrote:

~Nolan, Arielle and Jared have finished their astronomy text! We’ve been working through “Exploring Creation with Astronomy” http://www.highschoolscience.com/ We will begin “Exploring Creation with Zoology” in January.

~Jared is rushing ahead with his math text! This is a major break through for him. He is scoring 90-100% on all tests and assignments. His goal is to finish his current book by the end of January. He hopes to complete a second text by the end of the school year which will get him “caught up”.

~Arielle has finished another Explode the Code (phonics) book. She only has one reader left in the Sing, Spell, Read & Write program http://www.pearsonlearning.com/singspell/index.cfm. Her goal is to finish this program by the time school begins again on 2 January.

~Nolan is on Step 11 of the Sing, Spell, Read & Write program (the program consists of 36 steps). We’ve had a lot of fun noting the changes in the program since we began using it back in 1995.

~Stacia, Zander, Nolan, Arielle, Jared and I visited a local Christmas Tree Farm.

~Jamin has finished the rough draft of a book he’s been writing for several years. He is now revising it…spending hours at it and seeming to enjoy it. Mike and I are anxiously awaiting our turn to read the book.

~Jamin and Josiah are writing their first ever research papers. Yes, we are behind on this one. I’ve tended to let writing slide because I “know” what they know…but we’ve learned that this is not a good plan. Jamin is writing “Davy Crockett – personification of the American Spirit”, and Josiah is writing “The Hindu Belief in Reincarnation: How it affects the Hindu Worldview – contrasted with the Biblical view of the afterlife and how THAT affects the Christian Worldview”. Ok, ok….no catchy title yet for Josiah but that seems to be where he is heading…at a quick pace.

~Nolan, Arielle and Jared are currently working on a unique Advent Season writing assignment. They are taking daily pictures of things that remind say “Christmas” to them and then writing about that item. Yes, we miss our Nikon D 70 which was due back weeks ago from New York City. I’m starting to think we may have to track its journeys….TX, Amityville, NYC, Anchorage, AK, Amityville and we are assured it is winging its way back to TX “now”.