Here's a little of what we are doing:
Timothy is in 11th grade this year! So hard to believe! He's pushing forward with his dream of becoming a robotic engineer by taking AP calculus and AP physics. We were able to hook up with an international school in Kampala who is willing to organize and proctor the AP examinations for him in May. He's also doing Tree of Life's online program and taking Chinese, piano, computer programming and still running his robot club. The robot club has been great to watch. These guys have taken off with it and really seem to enjoy geeking out together.
Denise and Matthew have made huge strides this year. They are also beginning Tree of Life with Paige and have started the Apologia General Science course. They seem to be enjoying the challenge that these two courses are providing.
Katelyn has continued with Tree of Life. She is also working her way through One Year Adventure Novel and taking Arabic, Current Events, Biology, and Cello.
Rebecca is still pressing forward with her Chinese. She was delighted to have one of our recent visitors carry over a Chinese/English Bible for her. She still dreams of ending up in China one day. She's doing Tree of Life, Physical Science, geography, and violin. Paige is an accomplished violinist and Rebecca is enjoying having her around to help her with the violin.
Jimmy has started trumpet this year. We were able to find him a tutor as well. He's taking lessons with Brian, our neighbor, and his best friend. They love having something like this to do together.
Jimmy and William started the Writers in Residence series this year. It's our first time using it. So far they really seem to like it. I like that it is a combo with writing and grammar.
The rest of the younger crew...Jimmy, William, Benaiah, and Talitha are working through Apologia's Flying Creatures book and Story of the World Vol 2. We've realized that even though Uganda boasts of many amazing birds, our compound does not. Other than a flock of Pied Crows, we have very few bird sightings. Guess we do kids not birds here. haha! Paige is doing history with them. I love being able to turn this completely over and not have to think about it anymore.
They still do their maps in the Classical conversations style....tracing maps every day, focusing on Europe this cycle. This year, however, I added researching a country of their choice every few weeks. The first time was GREAT. They found some of the most interesting facts. William decided that he wants to be a sheep farmer in Scotland and eat haggis when he grows up. He wants to learn to play the bagpipe and wanted to learn Scottish as his foreign language until his siblings dashed his dreams with reality. Haha! He makes me laugh. Maybe one day he can learn Gaelic. Most of the kids are doing their math through Teaching Textbooks now. (I really love how independent TT is...a necessity with so many kids) Talitha is almost finished learning to read. She has become quite fluent in her reading skills and only has a few sounds left to learn. She loves it. They do spelling with the Rod and Staff spelling books and for literature this year, we just picked a stack of books off the shelf.
I've been on a quest to make school simple this year. I think we are enjoying a slower pace. Trying to leave more room for their passions in life and I'm loving seeing what they are loving.
I am so privileged to be able to teach my kids. I'm so thankful for this crew and every day that the Lord gives me with them.
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