So, we finished school officially last Friday. Yesterday, I finished grading "finals". There weren't really that many tests to grade, and they weren't that labor-intensive, but we've been a little occupied with other things (like...life) so I just found the time yesterday...while waiting for the mechanic to diagnose the problem with the van's AC (it's terminal, BTW, but we're praying for a miracle). At any rate, the results are in...everybody passed. Yeah!!! ;^)
No, seriously. The kids took a final exam in English From the Roots Up. All 5 kids passed with flying colors. Out of 62 Greek and Latin roots, 3 sections and 186 points, I think that the most anyone missed was 8. A couple of the kiddos got 100% on the recognition part of the test and a couple on the recall part and all 5 aced the usage section. Of course, Sarah gets an "automatic A" for teaching the class the better part of the year. I only took over the last month when she began to feel overwhelmed by her French homework. Somehow studying English, Spanish, Latin, Greek and French was too much. Go figure! Sarah took a "mid-term" in French last weekend and, although she was upset with her mistakes, she did very well, too. (I'm praying for a French/English dictionary for her for next semester if anyone has one of those collecting dust on a shelf...)
Math was a smashing success also. Caleb landed a solid B in Algebra, Sarah pulled a strong A from her Intermediate Algebra class. Both will be taking geometry next year (I'm praying for another used BJ Geometry textbook, too, if anyone has one laying around!). Neither are overly excited about that. Seth and Jess finished strong in their Saxon Math 76. I found a "Sixth grade math final exam" online which I printed out for them to take. Some of the questions covered topics we hadn't discussed (or at least not in depth) so we counted them as "extra credit". When it was all said and done, both finished with A's. Jessee did great, and I'm proud of the 9 bonus points he earned. Seth though, my mathematical over-achiever, managed to score a perfect 100% plus bonus points for a total of 117% on the final. Sound familiar, Mom? Andrew and Evie are both tickled to be moving on in Math. This year we worked on mastering addition tables and began multiplication tables. Next year...more of the same! ;^) Seth, Jessee, Andrew and Evie's books for next year...I already have! Benefits of having lots of kids!!! :^)
History, though, was my personal favorite this year. Here's a photo of our "Finished Product". 
The Mystery of History, Volume 1 covers creation through the resurrection. As you can see, we didn't quite make it to the resurrection. We had fun though!!! AND you can ask any one of the kiddos to tell you about any one of the little paper dolls or figures on this timeline, and you'd get an earful. Seth's favorite tidbit of information was about the Epic of Gilgamesh and his cubical ark. You can read more (as we did) about this famous literary work here. One of the reasons we traveled so slowly through time is that we kept learning things! For instance, on the actual day that we began to study Stonehenge, new discoveries were published online about the findings at a recent archaeological dig in England. How could we just read the lesson and move on? We ended up spending a couple of weeks on Stonehenge and then, suddenly, the school year was over. So there we stopped.
The Mystery of History, Volume 1 covers creation through the resurrection. As you can see, we didn't quite make it to the resurrection. We had fun though!!! AND you can ask any one of the kiddos to tell you about any one of the little paper dolls or figures on this timeline, and you'd get an earful. Seth's favorite tidbit of information was about the Epic of Gilgamesh and his cubical ark. You can read more (as we did) about this famous literary work here. One of the reasons we traveled so slowly through time is that we kept learning things! For instance, on the actual day that we began to study Stonehenge, new discoveries were published online about the findings at a recent archaeological dig in England. How could we just read the lesson and move on? We ended up spending a couple of weeks on Stonehenge and then, suddenly, the school year was over. So there we stopped. We'll pick up where we left off next year! I love home-schooling!!! Happy summer break!!!
2 comments:
Congratulations on a job well-done! Hope you all will enjoy some downtime for a while now.
So glad you stopped by my blog. I am going to have to do some surfing on yours. :)
How interesting that you're in Mexico. My son went on many mission trips with our church to the area about an hour south of El Paso, TX. Now he's out of college and married, but he's still going back on another trip in October. He just loves it there.
Try to keep cool....here in northeast Wisconsin, we still haven't hit 80 yet! I'm enjoying that, but I know it will get hot out soon enough.
Thanks, Barbara! Downtime? Probably not! Our first mission team for the summer comes in Tuesday night. We're excited! Pretty sure it will be a very "full" week! Ever since our first short-term trip as youth leaders (several years ago!) we've loved mission trips...both participating and hosting. The blessings flow both directions.
We've been spending a lot of time in the pool. Temps are up around 90 today, but the humidity is close to 80%. A little on the sticky side!
I'm so glad you stopped by! I've only begun to "scratch the surface" at your blog. You're bookmarked and I'm perusing a little every day. Excellent reading, Sister!
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