It is soon to be March and soon enough spring should arrive. Springtime is full of, hopefully, more sun than we get in a Pennsylvania winter, new beginnings, as plants start coming back into bloom, and an indicator to me that we’re in the homestretch of our school year. This year it also means my soon-to-be 18 year old will graduate from homeschool and prepare for his future adventures, where ever that leads him. It usually means for me that I have paperwork to finalize; grades to complete, transcripts to update, and making an appointment with our evaluator to close out our year so I can send that paperwork and next year’s affidavit off to the school district. How different it will feel only putting one child’s name down and only shopping for education materials for one child, for the next 2 years, which will be the last 2 years of homeschool. Lord willing nothing prevents it.

Everything to this point has gone pretty well as far as the education materials are concerned. I have had no real issues with curriculum choices, my teens may say otherwise. They really did not enjoy Jensen’s Vocabulary for the 1st half of the year. The reason they didn’t like it is because they were bored, but pretty much any language arts curriculum they are bored. It’s not a reflection on the curriculum itself. I felt it to be valuable to them. They just didn’t agree. It wasn’t the most exciting thing to read/study. It was learning new words and there definitions and there roots. I even learned some new words. To me, it was beneficial. They are working on British literature in the 2nd half of the year and again, they are bored. Probably more my son than my daughter. They have read things like Utopia, Beowulf, Taming of the Shrew and others with plenty more to come. The Science course has given them some decent foundations. They studied math in science, moved on to physics, and completing biology currently and will finish up with chemistry. My 12th grader is not taking a history course this year having met his 3 required credits (and focusing instead on other things) and my 10th grader is using Lifepac, which she prefers this type of reading, comprehension, self evaluation and testing approach. The course is something she needs little help with and can do on her own which is what she likes. Next year she’s requesting all her subjects be Lifepacs, which is something I need to evaluate and make a decision about. Lifepac is solid instruction and it does take a motivated child to complete the work. I personally don’t like all the work contained as worksheets. Finally, for Bible we completed the our journey through the New Testament with curriculum from Christian Liberty press and moved on to a curriculum about Bible Truths: patterns for Christian Living, from Bob Jones Press. I have taken my own approach to the lessons that fit our needs and style. There is a teacher led lesson and a student led lesson with comprehension questions at the end of each and there are unit tests. When there is something I may not entirely agree with, I will explain to my teens this is the publisher’s viewpoint, and than share mine. They can then decide what theirs is.