It has been 16 months since my last entry to my blog.  The twins had had their end of the year review and I was making plans for the coming year.  Their sophomore year went well on some fronts and not so well on others.  Rereading my previous entry makes me feel a bit sad. I had such high hopes for the year, and although it was a better year than their Freshman year, we still seemed to have so many struggles with keeping on course.

They each earned a credit for history and a credit for English using Sonlight's Core 100, American History in Depth.  We did 80% of the curriculum to meet our minimum requirement.  I don't prefer doing the minimum, but it was that our continue through August to get done.  That's the kind of year we had. 

Math went very well of SJ, but not so well for her brother.  JP was not able to finish Algebra II with VideoText.  His tutor was no longer able to help him and he just couldn't get it on his own. After a little research we decided to try Aleks, the online math curriculum, but after almost 9 months he couldn't seem to master more the 53% of the Algebra II material.  Our umbrella school advisor suggested he take a break from Algebra II and try his hand at Geometry.  More on that later.  Fortunately, the choice I had made for SJ for math worked well.  Instead of the Pacemaker Pre-Algebra math, we had decided to give Teaching Textbooks a try.  The education specialist who works with us in evaluating and giving SJ her IEP for math suggested it.  She tested into the TT7 level,  did very well with it and has continued on with Pre-Algebra.

JP finished Apologia Biology and got the second half of his Biology credit.  It was not his favorite course.  I have some great photos of him with his lab partner doing dissections where he almost looks green.  SJ participated in the biology labs with our co-op, but as planned, she used Globe Fearon's Pacemaker Biology.  Her teacher worked with me to reorder her chapters so that she was doing the same topics as the class.  Both SJ and I liked the curriculum and are using two of their textbooks for her Junior year.  I'll share more about Pacemaker at a later date.

Though our bathroom remodel has made slow progress, JP earned well over his 120 hours for a full credit of shop.  He continues to help his Dad and the project should be wrapped up in the next few weeks. He has learned a lot of very useful skills: sweating pipes (he liked using a blow torch), basic plumbing, basic wiring, laying tile and other miscellaneous skills connected with the project.  It did not get done as we hoped by Christmas 2007, but should, God willing, be done before Christmas of this year. 

JP's German credit didn't happen at all.  He kind of played at using Rosetta Stone from time to time, but wasn't consistent with it and wasn't consistent in using the workbooks I had ordered.  We had to sit down and figure something else out for a foreign language for the following year.

SJ did very well in all three of her umbrella school classes.  She did not end up logging any P.E., but she didn't need any P.E. credits either.  She had decided she didn't want to play basketball or softball, but she was pretty busy trying to keep up with school so that was okay.

So that was their Sophomore year.  As I write this we are three months into their Junior year.  I am going to write more often and will share about what we're doing this year and what I've done and am doing with my 5^th grader in other entries.  Writing all this out helps me to see the big picture and is somewhat therapeutic for this discouraged home school Mom. 

God bless!

Posted by PumpkinsMomma

hey there. i'm trying to get back into blogging too :)

we aren't making progress on our rosetta stne german either - but I'm getting ready to make it a part of the schedule...so hopefully we will do it more frequently.
marie