Homeschool Update

 We are more than a third through the school year and I thought that it was time to give an update kid to kid about how school is going. 

Adam is a senior, but he is still completing two of his junior year classes, so he is behind and won't likely graduate in June. In order to graduate he must complete the following courses: essay writing, ap chemistry, computer programming, calculus, ap physics, and American Heritage. Currently he is working to finish ap chemistry and computer programming before he begins ap physics and calculus. I will probably have him quickly do American Heritage over the Christmas vacation, so that is out of his way. Adam is smart. He gets good grades and he now is maintaining the stuff that he is learning, but he is very slow about things, even though he works steadily for hours everyday. When Adam does graduate, and probably before, I am going to have him work on video editing for a youtube channel for me as well as having him writing a website for our products, and probably doing some illustration. I am also considering putting him on an advertising end of things. 

Rachel is a junior in high school. She is currently taking essay writing, American Heritage, Spanish, and she is border line between Algebra 2 and pre-calculus. I think she may have crossed the line into pre-cal, but her book covers all algebra 2 and almost all of pre-cal. I have another pre-cal book too, though, that is smaller and more in depth that I will have her complete before calculus. She still has PE and chemistry to complete before she finishes off her junior year. I have not decided on what she needs to do for her senior year yet. But I plan to keep Rachel on as a student another year. She will not be ready to face the world just after she turns 18 in 2024. 

Anya is a freshman and my star student. Anya does all of her work everyday and she never complains and she gets good grades and generally seems to like learning things. Anya is an excellent writer. She has written some really good poems recently and she writes very interesting sentences and uses words well. I am very happy with Anya. I was pretty sure, we would be working for her to be an illustrator, but she has a lot of talent with writing and she might want to go that way instead. Right now Anya is doing an illustrations course, language arts, algebra 2, and Spanish. She has already completed biology, and she will still complete p.e. and American Heritage. 

Joseph is in 8th grade. I had originally bumped him up a grade because he has always done all of the same work as Anya, sometimes even pulling ahead, but over time, I have learned that it isn't the right thing to rush my kids into adulthood. So for 8th grade, Joseph has completed physics; he is working on algebra 2, language arts, and American Heritage. He will still have to complete PE and Spanish. I will have to put his geometry and algebra 2 courses on his high school transcripts, but I will have him take the high level sciences and histories over again. 

Joshua is in the 6th grade. He is reading much better, but he still struggles with words, especially when he gets frustrated. Joshua generally finishes all that he has to do every day. He is mostly an easy student, except for reading. He is currently taking a geography class, language arts, art, and pre-algebra. When he finishes his geography course, he will take an earth science class, and he will also complete a typing class and pe before the end of the school year. I am not sure he will be ready to move to algebra one for his 7th grade year. He is going very slowly through his book, sometimes taking a week or more for one lesson to really get settled in and solidified. But that is the nice thing about homeschool, you can work at your own pace and actually learn the material.

Arwen is in the 5th grade. She has a typical elementary school schedule. Sometimes Arwen works very slowly and sometimes she gets her work done quickly. Arwen does not like her geography class. I am not sure why, but she seems to really struggle reading a question and looking on a map to find the answer.

Susan is in second grade, technically, she is supposed to be in third grade, but her reading is at a second grade level, so that is where she is doing everything, including math. She is just starting to learn her times tables. But at a second grade level, Susan is doing very well. She is generally very easy to teach and willing to do all of her school work, which she completes in about an hour and a half. I hope, at some point, to bump her back up to the technical grade that she is supposed to be in, but right now, I will take it one school year at a time. 

Sam is in kindergarten and he is learning to read and doing very well. He is sounding out 3 letter words very well and can do his easy readers without any trouble. He can count well and add and subtract and he really enjoys the little science and history books that we read together. Sam is on the same curriculum that Susan did last year and the year before. I think that Sam will be reading fairly well on his own in another year. I think that he will only be about one grade level behind Susan. 

Gideon loves his school time with me. He needed speech therapy. He mouth and tongue muscles were quite week. It's great that now we can understand him very well. With Gideon, he repeats things that I say while looking at pictures, and we sing a lot of nursery songs together. Recently, Gideon has been writing his letters. I have not even shown them to him, he has picked them up from looking at books. Of course, that makes me really happy. Gideon has a good attention span. He can spend an hour coloring one picture or doing one of his own drawings. 

Eliza loves Gideon's school time, so when she sees me sitting with Gideon, she runs over and sits on my lap and joins in. Eliza is 15 months and has about 6 words.