End of the Homeschool Year

 In our final week of 7th grade homeschooling we are reviewing American History in preparation for  the U.S. Constitution and more history for 8th grade.
Our second year of homeschooling has been a learning period.  I was more relaxed this past year compared to my "stiff almost military-like" mentally of always sticking to every detail of our schedules from last year.  I was such a warden in getting things done properly.  I felt so pressured ( I don't know from whom) to make sure I was teaching him everything on time, following our public school district's standard (which is not mandatory in Illinois) that is posted on their website.  I felt I had to "keep up" with the public school students.

As I review the past 9 months of homeschooling, I found that we are actually ahead of schedule.  We have completed our Medieval and Ancient History studies and in May, we were reviewing specific leaders and their accomplishments. In Math, we have begun our introduction to the basics of Geometry while still completing tests and exercises in Pre-Algebra and Algebra I.  Science was a piece of cake! We covered so much material and experiments at home.  This is by far his favorite subject!  We read literature books such as Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and The Giver by Lois Lowry.  We completed writing exercising, mostly typed in MS Word, since my son doesn't like to write much.  This is one "part" of my strict ways I had to ease up on.  Whenever I assigned writing compositions or essays, he insisted on typing it and either save it on the hard drive, a flash drive, or emailing it to me.  He was definitely motivated and argued less on completing his writing homework. In today's world, it is completely acceptable to finish the writing assignments using word processing programs; after all some if not most colleges today prefer this method.

This week I am already in the 8th grade mode!  I am thinking about the great books we will be reading next year! I am also in the process of reviewing a new curriculum for Math--debating over Saxon Math or Singapore Math.  We use SOS (Switched On Schoolhouse) for US History and Language Arts.  As far as Literature, I like a site called Litcharts.  They have PDF, printables and iPhone Apps of many books. Here is the website for LitCharts:  www.litcharts.com

What I learned in our 2nd year of homeschooling: it's OK if I don't follow the pre-made schedule I make ahead for myself; that it's OK to sometimes "wing it" to accommodate other learning methods and ideologies that may come.  We incorporated more field trips and learn in different environments and not only from books or in our "classroom".  That if we miss a day, it's not the end of the world and the most important thing for me keep in mind is that he is learning and grasping concepts.