Year Ten - 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 recored-keeping.  If you're interested in the nitty-gritty of What We Do For Homeschool, here's your fix.  If not?  Nothing to see here - move along  ;D

As I tidied up the school corner (I can't say "school room" any more!) and did some record-keeping for Gunnar's transcript I was kind of shocked to realize that this was our tenth year of homeschooling.   TENTH!  I guess I was more than "kind of" surprised!  It has felt so different this year, with only one student, and him only part time.  But here's a quick rundown on all the boybarians...

WYATT - graduated from Whatcom Community College in December - WOO-HOO!!!  He's working full-time for a local heating and air-conditioning outfit.  Yay, Wyatt!

TATE - just finished his first year at Bellingham Technical College, through the Running Start program.  He chose to take 20 credits each quarter, and maintained a perfect 4.0 while working part-time and remaining active with the Civil Air Patrol.  

Just yesterday...

Tate was notified that he's the recipient of a $2000 Grainger "Tools for Tomorrow" scholarship.

We're just a little bit excited about that!

He's working full-time this summer at the local Wastewater Treatment Plant, which also counts for TWO internships for his BTC program - Process Technology.

Gunnar - like his brothers before him, has taken three classes at the high school - Algebra, English, and Spanish, while continuing his studies at home.

Gunnar completed a one year overview of World History...

... and introduction to logic, with The Fallacy Detective...

... and a year of Apologia's Biology with labs...

... and I've got to tell you how much we love the student notebooks.

SO HELPFUL!!!

Totally worth the extra bucks.

He also read and discussed Jay Wile's Reasonable Faith, Henry Morris' What Is Creation Science?, Duane Gish's Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No!, and the Harris brothers' Do Hard Things.

 Gunnar has also continued taking private violin lessons this school year,

and we're looking forward to a week of fiddle camp.

He's planning on giving the school orchestra a try next year :D

It's been a really good year for Gunnar.  He's making the transition to working more independently and relying less on me.  I gave him a weekly schedule so we could see the whole year mapped out (and adapt and flex when we wanted), made sure he had what he needed for his biology labs, checked his work a couple of times a week, and helped him review for tests.  He's growing up :D

WHEW!

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

If You Give A Mom An Idea...

... and the labor to make it happen...

she'll work herself into exhaustion.

Right?

I had this plan that over the summer we would rearrange

how we use some of the rooms upstairs.

Prompted by certain boys growing up and aging out of homeschooling,

(the nerve of them!)

I've been going through lots of materials we're done with -

sorting and selling -

to open up some space for other things :D

Aaaaand I had my hopes set on using the school room for my craft room,

because it gets such wonderful light.

But that would happen... you know...

sometime over the summer.

Saturday I had the boys all here

and wanted them to help me move everything off our linoleum floor,

 and sweep/mop/scrub it preparatory for waxing.

None of that is really hard, except the whole

on-my-hands-and-knees part.

I don't love that.

But we (mostly I) got it done,

and we all had a well-earned break.

Because it was Saturday, right?

So while the boys had their break I wandered upstairs and thought I'd just start cleaning and sorting things from my office, to get ready for the big shift.

The thing about moving the rooms around is that I want a blank slate -

the room has to be EMPTY before I want to move new things in.

Also, much easier to clean, right?

And my office would be the logical room to empty first.

Later, you know, when we got around to actually doing the move.

So I started sorting, and moving a few things into my bedroom closet

to get them out of the way.

Well, it looked so good to have that side of the room tidied up,

that I started on the closet.

Well, yah, then I was getting some serious momentum.

The boys' friend was about to leave,

I was hanging the third load of laundry on the line,

and I grabbed Kerry and started to twist his arm.

Because the sticking point was these:

These fabulous IKEA storage units are too big to move.

Corners.  Our house has them.

The units must be emptied and disassembled to move.

UGH.

But I convinced him :D

Besides, we'd be moving beds,

and I already had all the sheets off to be washed.

And that makes sense, right?

Because we'd have to remake the beds anyway, right?

So Team Garrett went into action.

One end of the boys' room (above),

and the other end (below).

What is that verse in Proverbs?

Something like,

Where no oxen are,

the manger is clean,

but much increase comes

by the strength of the ox.

Something like that.

Well, some of my oxen surely mess up the manger.

*Ahem*

But they do work hard!

I snapped some pics before we started...

I love our school room!

Lots of happy memories :D

We emptied my office.

Desk and computer into the boys' bathroom, 

and everything else piled into my bedroom.

The boys disassembled the two bunk beds to be moved,

and Wyatt and Gunnar started reassembling them in my old office.

Meahwhile, Kerry and Tate were disassembling

and reassembling my IKEA monoliths.

And PS, Kerry,

where is your leg???

Last time I checked, you had two. 

At this point, well, I almost despaired.

This kind of chaos does not help my inner peace!

Meanwhile, I mentioned that we piled stuff in my bedroom?

Welcome to Hoarder Heaven.

That's what it looked like.

But we were starting to make headway :D

The boys' closet looks so much better with two thirds the stuff in it!

I gave Gunnar a solemn challenge to keep his corner neater than its previous occupant did.

Tate's corner looks good.

And Wyatt was busily nesting in his new room.

He hasn't had a room of his own for almost 18 years ;D

Found this "treasure" cleaning out the school room.

The boys made this when they dissected owl pellets.

I'm thinking there may be more than one animal represented there!

With Wyatt settled into his room,

we turned one end of Tate and Gunnar's (huge) bedroom

into a school "area".

I think it looks great :D

There's a desk at the other end of the room that Tate usually uses.

Gunnar will have lots of space, and everything we'll need

for the next two years of P/T homeschooling.

And he has a great view :D

My new room?

Still a work in progress!

Trying to sort/cull as I go.

Pics of that...

later.