SCHOOL'S OUT OR SUMMER!

Evaluation and Musings of a Free Homeschooling Mom!

We just took our last spelling test today! My oldest had two more pages and the test, but I told him he could skip the pages and go straight to the test. For a "follow the rules" kind of guy, it was a big step for him to LOOSEN UP and do it, but he did. We finished at 10:30! WOOHOOO!

Here is the Year's Summary!

Prayer
American Indian Prayer Guide was a hit-out-of-the ballpark kind of experience for us. We loved learning about their history and were saddened by the white man's treatment of our most precious national resource! It was eye-opening and a pleasure to pray for these tribes who have been so mistreated. No wonder many reject Christianity when the Christians were so stinky. (Sonlight Press)

Next Year: I was going to do Windows on the World, but I found a book through the Presidential Prayer team called Kids Who Pray for the USA (ISBN:1-4003-0296X). It helps them pray for the USA and its leaders with stickers and a banner and postcards. They also learn history along with it. Looks HOT! May do Windows after we finish this if there is time.

Bible
We started out loving the John: Study the Bible 4 Yourself by Kay Arthur, but it began to BOG DOWN. Three books just for one book of the bible was a little TOO detailed for kids, IMHO! We got to John 13 and decided to pick Chapters 14-21 up next year. Suprisingly, my great idea to include The Gospel of John DVD got boring for them too. I thought since they were making a movie with the Kay Arthur study it would be good to "see" a movie with a word-for-word translation. It bombed!

After Easter, we just read through The Ladybird Storybook Bible. This is our second time through, but they just loved this colorfully illustrated bible.

Next year: We will TRY to finish up John and read through Egermeier's or Hurlbut's again.

History
It worked to combine Story of the World: Volume 3 AND the Sonlight History Read Alouds from US History 3. It was much more US history than World, but that is OK. We used the Mapquest maps too. Also,