Year Nine - DONE!

As always, my annual disclaimer...

For most of you, this post will definitely fall into the category of over-sharing.  For me, this is record-keeping.  If you're interested in the nitty-gritty details of What We Do For Homeschool, here's your fix.  If not?  Nothing to see here - move along  ;D

Nine years.  Can hardly believe it.  Whew!

WYATT - college sophomore / high school senior:

has just finished his second year at Whatcom Community College.  We are enormously grateful for Washington state's Running Start program.  As a high-school student he has had two years of college tuition paid for, was able to borrow most of his text books (free!), and is oh-so-close to graduating with an AA degree.  He'll be returning for Fall Quarter and (if all goes well) graduating in December.

He gave up his grocery job to better focus on school, but is looking for summer odd jobs...

in case you need some grunt-work done!

Woo-hoo!

TATE - high school sophomore (Grade 10):

has just finished his second year of high school.  He's done wonderfully - all As (Geometry and second year Algebra) and a B+ (Spanish).   I know other moms of D/HoH kids who waiver their kids out of foreign language because it's just too hard with the hearing loss factored in, so B+?  AWESOME! 

He has finished three of his four homeschool subjects:

Civics

Economics

English / Preparation for Launch

Tate LOVES to write (he's working on a book) so I don't have to "make" him do much writing, but I did select  a bundle of books for him to read and discuss with me - one per month.  That was awesome.  I'll have Gunnar do this too!

His Apologia science (Chemistry) course recommends these first two,

so I was sure to include them:

Then I chose the rest.

We had a lot of good discussions.

We thought, and talked, and sifted and gleaned together.

We found these really helpful:

Thinking of marriage down the road?  Voddie Baucham wrote this with his daughters in mind,

but it was easy to turn it around mentally and look at it from the guys' point of view.

Will you turn the world upside down, or let it turn you upside down?

On oldie, but a goodie.

Talking naturally about spiritual things.

Yes, it's written for/to parents.

Great discussion starters!

So very, very practical.

I love his adage,

You can't take it with you,

but you can send it on ahead. 

Every high school and college graduate should read this.

Seriously. 

I want to just buy a huge box of them and give them to every Christian teen I know.

And, hands-down, our favorite... 

Whew!  That was a lot of reading and discussing!

Because Tate also added a five-credit class at the Tech College for spring quarter

(prerequisite for next year's program) I encouraged him to defer the last three or four chapters of Chemistry until he finished his other classes.

He'll be wrapping this up in the next couple of weeks.

He has also continued to be involved with Civil Air Patrol,

earning his Billy Mitchell Award,

and continues to work his tail off at the grocery store.

Well done, Tate!

Gunnar - Grade 8:

has also been a very busy beaver.

While he doesn't love writing the way Tate does,

Gunnar does a good job with the mechanics of writing

("GPS" - grammar, punctuation, and spelling).

We also read poetry together again this year :D

Some hits and some misses...

Let it be known that I have now finished Algebra for the FOURTH time,

and will not be repeating it again!

Gunnar can tell you how long it will take the cheetah to catch the rabbit

if the rabbit got a 30 second head start, yada yada yada.

We love our Apologia science :D

Gunnar really enjoyed reading through American History with Sonlight's collection of books.

Not sure they're all in the photos... it was a lot!

About a book a week, in addition to the text/series.

And now everything changes again.

Wyatt, of course, is already in college.

Tate will be f/t at the Tech College next fall.

And Gunnar will be half-time at the high school,

and only half-time at home.

And he should be working mostly independently.

WHEW!

This is year nine.  NINE!

I won't pretend that I enjoyed every single minute of it

(because who does, right?)

But I loved it.

Really.  Truly.

I'm so glad I've had this time with my boys.

(Why should the school get the best part of their day?)

I'm glad we had the freedom to homeschool the way we wanted.

To structure our days and months the way we wanted.

To take time off for vacations and holidays and surgeries when we wanted.

To learn the way we wanted.

Freedom!

And now, summer!

A different kind of freedom ;D