Where We Are

(It is tiresome to read someone's apology for not posting and resolution to write more, so I won't say anything about my hope that I will be a more dedicated blogger this summer.)

I mostly want to write about where we are in our homeschooling.  My two youngest are still finishing this year's schoolwork, but Aravis has officially been handed her diploma and is now a high school graduate.

Mariel and Cornflower will do math all summer.  We are also doing a neurodevelopmental program.  I am learning more about how the brain works, which is very interesting: visual/auditory processing, hand/eye/ear/foot dominance. That sort of thing.  It goes on for four months and then we will see whether the results are worth the effort.  I mostly hope it will help with short term memory, organization and sequencing.  The girls are being good sports about it.  I promised Cornflower we would get her some workout clothes. :)

We take daily walks as part of the program.  We are going to get pedometers and once we have walked a total of 450 miles, we are going to visit friends that live 450 miles away.  That will be our reward for sticking it out.

Our work has changed too.   The Warrior Poet is working in a warrior shop now.  He sells guns and that sort of thing.  It's more his style than selling soap.  He is happy. This past year has been confused and frustrating, like a whirlwind, but the Lord has set us down in a good place.

I teach more private music lessons now, three afternoons/evenings per week.  I enjoy teaching music.  Funny how I always feel renewed after working with individual music students for a few hours.  I must be meant to do that sort of work.

We are still adjusting to the odd times of the Warrior Poet's retail and my after-school teaching schedule, looking for those golden hours when we are all available for family time.

Aravis still works at the Walgreens on the corner, although that may change once she gets her schedule for her first term at the university.  Mariel just started a job as car-hop at the nearby Sonic.  Cornflower aspires to work as well, and actually did have a twice-a-month gig this school year, teaching music-readiness activities to two of the brightest and sweetest little boys you ever did see.  They are off for the summer, but will begin again in the fall.  In the meantime, she plans to volunteer at the library.

Here are the books we read this year. An asterisk (*) means we are still working on it. A bold title is one I read also.  Italics means we read it together (at least some of us).  I am not including outside courses or curriculum-type things.  These are real books we read. We also did ALEKS math, Apologia sciences, Lost Tools of Writing, the Hillsdale online Constitution course, fine arts co-op, an outside Spanish class (Mariel), dual credit courses (Aravis), a personal finance course (Aravis), drama club, and orchestra/music lessons (Cornflower).  And we read the Bible together every school day.  Now.  These are the books we read:

Aravis (a cobbled-together Year of Ancients)-

The Iliad
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Vanity Fair
The Greek Way
The Roman Way
The Portable Greek Historian
The Portable Roman Reader
Heroes of the City of Man
The Christian Imagination
The Odyssey
Quo Vadis
The Blood of the Moon


Mariel (AO/HEO Year 9)-

A History of the American People
Hamlet
Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington
*How to Read a Book
Land of Little Rain
Marie Antoinette and Her Son
Miracle at Philadelphia
Mozart (biography)
Ourselves
Salem Witchcraft Trials
She Stoops to Conquer
*Simond's History of American Literature
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Tale of a Tub
The Four Loves
*The God Who is There
*The Jesus I Never Knew
The Problem of Pain
The School for Scandal
The Sea Around Us
The Vicar of Wakefield
*Undaunted Courage
*Waverly
Poetry of Byron, Pope and Phillis Wheatley

Cornflower (AO Year 6)-

*Be Ready to Answer (updated version)
God's Smuggler
Age of Fable
Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity
Animal Farm
Augustus Caesar's World
Carry a Big Stick
Genesis: Finding Our Roots
It Couldn't Just Happen
*Little Women
*Never Give In
School of the Woods
Secrets of the Universe
Story of the Greeks
*Story of the Romans
Story of the World Vol. 4
*The Bronze Bow
The Story of David Livingstone
Poetry of Alfred Noyes and Robert Frost

I've been feeling kind of down that we aren't finished with school yet.  That is a common small-talk question currently: "Are you finished yet?"  Well, no, we are not.  And it made me feel somewhat down, like we hadn't worked hard enough to get things done on time.  But we did a lot.  Maybe I shouldn't plan so much of everything next year.