Homeschooling

Today I was going over our homeschool records. We have 37 school days left in the 2008-2009 school year! Yahoo! I feel like it's been quite a productive year. Jacob has been able to take some college courses, and loved it! Rachel has really shown a vast improvement in her math during the second semester and doesn't seem to have that "dread" when it comes time to open the math book. :) In fact, she actually asked me last night if she could do summer school!?!?!? After I picked my lower jaw off the floor, I asked her why. She replied, "Well, I just want to keep going." Hmmm. Katie is ahead of "schedule" with her work, and, in fact, I will have to find more work for her to do in order to finish our required 180 days. It is sights like the picture below that make my homeschooling mama's heart go pitty-pat. :) I love to see my kids reading on their own and enjoying it. Though we use textbooks in our schooling, I'm not a firm believer in sticking to a book 100% of the time. I'm also a firm believer in this: not every technique/textbook/system works for every student. Each child is an individual…they have different personalities, different ways of thinking up solutions to a problem, different ways of learning. So what works best for one, may not necessarily work best for another. That's where the beauty of homeschool comes in. You can adjust the "technique" to the child. Flexibility. For example, while textbooks seem to be Rachel's choice, hands-on learning works well for Katie. That doesn't mean I get rid of textbooks when teaching Katie. We use textbooks for math and grammar. But when it comes to science and history, I'm not quite so rigid, especially in the elementary grades. I do have history and science textbooks, but we use them more as guidebooks. In science right now, Katie is doing a series of reports on different animals. She's doing the research, then writing detailed reports, instead of just reading about them in the textbook. (She's also learning grammar at the same time by doing this.) :)

It's the time of year when I generally try to get started in planning school for the next year. It may seem a little early for that, but I like to think it through and plan. It just occurred to me during this process that next year, I will only have two left to teach. Jacob will be in college full time! He is already registered at our community college and will be taking his first two year there, Lord willing. He is planning to major in business. He's got a good headstart after taking Economics I and Intro. Accounting. In fact, the counselor at the college told us he already had two of his hardest courses behind him! That's a plus! :) We also found out that he won't have to take any developmental courses, so we were glad for that. He's really looking forward to being a full-time student. He'll be doing orientation at the college in mid-April, and will start in the fall…entering a whole new phase in his life.

Just thought I'd give a little update on our homeschooling. It's a rainy east Tennessee day here...the Lord is watering all those cabbage plants and onions we planted last week! :) I'll be back with another post soon! Hope y'all have a good day!