They really graduated...

When I just checked in at our little homeschool blog here, to see about getting in a new post, I thought it was just about 5 months ago that I last posted.  Wrong.  That's one year + five months.  And I didn't even know it.... yikes.

But my kids really did graduate.  Isaiah finished 4th grade summer 2016 and Marian finished 3rd.  In math, they have completed Chinese textbooks to (M) beginning 5th grade level and (I) beginning 6th grade level.  Super stars....  Now to work on English!!!

John's graduation pic from Chinese preschool (which, along with English phonics work at home with me, we counted as his first grade year) is on our family blog in July 2016 I think.  He's adorable and he's doing great... not an eager reader, but I think he's doing fine, especially when I weigh in that he is confidently bilingual.  I'm ok if he's not (yet :) ) the top of his class... oh but wait- he's the only one in his class at home, so he already is!  I love this sweet John Boy.  And Vivi is usually happy to take a stab at any simple word and doesn't feel the least bit intimidated by an early reader book.  I love that optimism and happy heart in her!

This fall we are in the states for our first ever semester of school here.  Matt is taking a huge and heavy and wondrously rich load of classes at RTS and the kids are at Libertas Academy, a hybrid school where they get 4 classes (writing, history, science, and speech and logic- for M and J/ Debate and logic for Isaiah) on Mondays every week, and then 4 days of assignments to work on at home.
Isaiah is in 5th grade, Marian in 4th, John in 2nd, and Vivi in Kinder.

The big three are using IEW for writing and I think its great for this semester but I don't think we will continue with it on our own back in China.  We will be continuing with Analytical Grammar and Beyond the Book Report  / Writing with Skill.  (Probably do WWSkill in 5th-6th grades and AG/BBR in 7th and 8th).

I love the Debate stuff Isaiah is learning from (The Argument Builder) ... and the Apologia textbooks the big two are enjoying. For history, I think we will carry on with Mystery of History, volume 4 when we head back...  I'm also looking forward to starting up with an online Humanities course for Isaiah in 7th grade.  We'll probably end up going with Logos School or Wilson Hill for this.   I love the integrated way they weave history/geography/literature/philosophy and intertwine and root it all on a solid Biblical foundation.  

The big two are doing Life of Fred for Math which suits us well...  I'm not yet super confident that the kids are really learning from it, but I need to be working more closely with them (like "Crossing the Bridges"  the review check points in Isaiah's Fractions book.  I love the set up of these books!

And for Chinese.... I found as free downloads online the BEST curriculum for our kids to learn Chinese.  I am So Grateful for this b/c we've had a hard time finding teachers in China that would be willing to flex with us and not have an exact textbook.... because no textbooks fit our kids!  They are not on grade level with Chinese kids in reading and writing and they are not foreigner English speakers trying to learn a foreign language.  This series of 12 textbooks from beginner to advanced was written for English speaking kids of Chinese parents who live overseas.  It's wonderful!

Hopefully I'll get to a more detailed updated plan for our homeschool path....  My hopes and aims for where we're heading for middle school and, with the benefit of some hindsight now, the way I want to take John and Vivi through elementary homeschool years.  I've been working on this grand plan for a while....  post coming soon!

2nd and 3rd Grade Graduation!

We had a joyful celebration last night in our home...  celebrating our big kids finishing a great school year with their Chinese teachers.  We'll have a Creative Arts Concert sometime this summer that will be with some English speaking kiddo friends.  But this time was special for the kids to celebrate their Chinese learning and to honor and thank their tremendous teachers.  They've done so well this year!  The Lord has sure blessed us with these fantastic young ladies as a Chinese and a Math & U teacher.

I just have to rave a little.  Our big guy is in 3rd grade and his teacher has been supplementing a standard 3rd grade level math book with the Chinese Olympic Math textbook.  Each kiddo also filled out three mental math practice drill books in this past semester.  They've been working hard, and it's been paying off.  Olympic math is a high level, logic heavy math book that kids all over the country feel enormous pressure to attain to.  Their sweet teacher Eldonna put the Olympic math problems at the bottom.  Isaiah conquered this whole poster of problems and the two biggies at the bottom in seven minutes!  (Ok, there were a few errors, but on the whole, he knows how to go after these problems and he did super well :)  The bottom problem... it breaks down into 4x25x4 (which he can do in his head) and then times 64....  sweet smarty boy!

Marian's Olympic math problem was like this:  You see 10 heads in a field and you count a total of 26 feet.  How many of the heads are chickens (2 feet) and how many are rabbits (4 feet)?    She nailed it:  3 rabbits and 7 chickens... and I still don't understand the straightest way to figuring that out!

We love this teacher!  

Our homeschool motto hasn't yet changed...  I do hope it will graduate with these kids from high school and into life beyond!  "Hard Work and High Spirits for His Glory"

The kids both read a selection from their Chinese textbook and recited a few verses from Psalm 103 (v. 11-13).  We had memorized the whole Psalm in English but only shared these few verses with the friends at our graduation gathering.  

This sweet Chinese teacher has only been with us for the past two months and I hope she'll stay with us for years to come.   We love her so much!  She's getting married early June and our girls will get to be flower girls for her... which they are over the moon happy about.  

We won't have any English "show" for this year... but the kids will participate in a Creative Arts Concert with other english speaking friends sometime this summer.  It has been a neat thing to hear them brining pieces together from their history class, the literature we read aloud in the afternoons and Bible...  so sweet to see them growing and learning and loving to read and loving the Lord.  Now... if we could just see more of loving each other!  

Oh we have a painful bickering crew on our hands... but we love them still!  If you pray for any one thing for our family, I would ask for the Lord's help for our kids to learn to wait and speak kindly with each other and generally, to lighten up and laugh and show love to one another.  We struggle so sadly much in this area!

that second semester...

...or third trimester.... or whatever.

It was a mess.   Chinese New Year vacation and a passport-run (+vacation) for our family to Hong Kong.  Then we learned the kids' brilliant Chinese teacher didn't yet feel ready to return to teaching from maternity leave (her baby was 3 months.  I totally get this!  But we didn't expect it and we were unprepared.)  By the Lord's grace, we had a sweet teacher step in for about 6 weeks of Chinese and Math with our big two (John and Vivi were finishing well at their local Chinese Christian preschool.) And by the end of March we were mad with moving.... our hose in total disarray, good-byes every day with dear friends.  All of April was driving across China, hoteling while we house-hunted, and then more moving/dodging repairs/cleaning/unpacking.

So by the beginning of May I think we did a bit of homeschooling again...  But right now, honestly, I can't think of what it was!  Language arts in their Scott Foresman workbooks, copy work on Bible verses, math worksheets printed off the web (their normal math is to go through a Chinese textbook so I just kept running with the next lessons in a format I could explain to them!).  We barely touched science, except for reading aloud nature stories (easy science exposure from the Christian Liberty Nature Readers.)

I know that I skipped doing any more history.  We started the year doing ancient history with Tapestry of Grace and I LOVE ToG.  But for a dozen other reasons (Grandma and Grandpa's visit at Thanksgiving time would be a great time to study America and then we learned we would be moving to join up for school with a cool Canadian family, so this was our chance to grab for America lessons!), we switched to a unit of American history.  The Best Read Aloud for American history that we enjoyed-  40 Acres and A Mule.  5 star.  For the third trimester of Isaiah's 2nd grade year and Marian's 1st grade year...  yea, no history at all.   I think they're still breathing though...

We memorized Ephesians 6:10-18, the Armor of God.  And we really need to revisit Kevin Hartnett's unbeatable poem Honored be Thy Wondrous Word to keep those two passages parallel in our hearts and minds.  Lord may your Word be sharp in our souls, bearing fruit for your glory in and out of our lives!

Our kids have been busy bees this summer (since those last few months were so scattery) and they've both finished and gone beyond their math textbooks for grade level and they've been working on more Hanzi and pinyin still for Chinese.  It's super cool to see how excited and motivated our kids are to study the other language around us here.  Their pumped and ready to aim for being trilingual kiddos.  Isaiah's set his goal for Christmas, to be able to converse freely with all his local friends :)

This write-up doesn't encourage me so much...  so maybe I'll just end it quick.  I'm really looking forward to our next semester though!  It is not going to be at all what we imagined... but it's going to be good.  I trust the Lord for that...

The Plan: Homeschool on the Road (yikes!)

We'll be arriving in the states in about five weeks.  I'll be meeting our first grade curriculum a week or two after the time we probably should have started studying through it..... so much for the luxury of time to plan!   It looks like our family will be staying in probably 20+ different homes this fall but we'll have a few long stretches (several weeks) in 2 of those locations so that's where our chances are best for getting into a bit of a routine for homeschooling...

But I'm super excited for our launch into this adventure in homeschooling.  This month Isaiah graduated from Kindergarden, enjoying simple science lessons, speaking Chinese like a local and really excelling in math.  He started piano lessons this spring with a stellar teacher that comes to our home once a week...  and I finished going through the 100 Lessons to Teach Your Child to Read with him in March.

This fall we'll be working on the My Father's World 1st grade basic package...  aiming to cover 5 subjects a day:

1. Bible 
2. World (geography and prayer-  I'm really excited to be spending more time in prayer with our kids for the projects and the people we get to support and for governments and needs in our world) 
3. Math
4. Literature:  Reading living stories,  Comprehension (Narration-  Simply Charlotte Mason has great tips for narration and living stories)
5. Alternate between Handwriting & Science

Of course, this will all be supplemented with lots of intentionality to develop more handicraft skills and with vitally important attention to character and personal development.  

Isaiah will be starting with Math Mammoth at the second grade book after I finish just a few chapters on telling time and American money from the first grade book.  Marian is looking ripe and ready for the first grade math book.  How fun!

art school

Isaiah and Marian got to attend art school during their summer vacation from AM Chinese preschool.  What a blessing these sweet young girls were to teach our kids and inspire them so!

The first morning we were about 5 minutes late and I joked, "we'll have to tell the teachers it was because traffic was so bad during our commute."  The problem is:  the art school door is straight across the hall from us-  about 6 steps from our front door.  Truly, the perfect set up for this busy house of kiddos!

The first day Wang Laoshi had Isaiah and Marian draw a little something, just to guage where they were at.  They looked at a fake pear in front of them and tried to draw it.  Immediately she notice, "oh, so she's got lots of imagination and he's more of a realist."  Yep.  She nailed it.

She missed the other aspect about our boy, that perhaps since he's a realist, he likes to correct most everything that, in his view, is skewed a bit.  The other day he was sitting at the table and asked Matt and I, who were standing in the kitchen, "do you know how much water you're supposed to drink every day?"  Matt answered, "a lot."  And Isaiah corrected his dad:  "No, more than that."