School Summary - First Persian Gulf War, Africa, and that's it

I laughed so hard at this English assignment categorizing adjectives. The abbreviated answer ended up saying, "True Dat." Very ghetto of our Mennonite published curricula. ;)

I respectfully ask that you not pin pictures of my children to Pinterest. Thank you!

A Summary of May 9-20

Y'all, we're done.
I'm not sure my mind is really in a 'finish up the portfolios/do the evaluations/submit paperwork' state of mind, but it sure is in a 'ready for summer break/glad to be finished' state. This is my last summary for the year--huzzah! And then I really do have to get stuff filed, the school room cleaned up (and cleaned out), next year's paperwork submitted, and next year planned. I'd love to zip through it all and have a real summer break this year. But, realistically, I have no expectations. Except for some ice cream and a couple trips to the pool... :)
Here's what we did as we finished:

Things that were scheduled:

Math

Tenor really started to struggle with Algebra 2, so we shelved it for the last week and will probably start over at lesson 1 in the fall. He's understanding the concepts for the most part but not testing well. I'm hoping a mental break from it and a fresh look next school year will give him more success.
Soprano finished her Saxon book and decided that she wanted to keep on going with Life of Fred. She has decided she'd like to be a math teacher some day (she's decided for now anyway) and wants to continue doing LOF over the summer. As long as I don't have to correct it, the plan gets a thumbs up from me.

Language Arts (Grammar with Writing and Literature for both; Spelling for Soprano)
They both do well with grammar so finishing up their books was just a matter of time. Soprano wanted to be done school earlier than Friday so she was doubling up on lessons as much as she could. She's also pretty excited that this was her last year of formal spelling curriculum. I'm not terribly disappointed about it either. From now on, for both of them, spelling will be an 'as we find an error' type of a thing. Tenor has one literature assignment to complete and then his LA is done as well.

Electives:

Greek and Computer Science (Tenor), American Sign Language, Photography, and Sewing (Soprano)

Tenor finished his fourth level of Greek. This year's program counts as 1/2 credit. Since he's not taking a modern foreign language, I'm hoping that graduating (Lord willing) with 5 credits of biblical Greek on his transcript will make a good impression. Now I just have to record it on his transcript...

My Father's World 1850 to Modern Times
Our very last week in the family cycle ever... It's a little sad. Five years ago when we started homeschooling, I "stumbled" (*cough, cough* God totally orchestrated it) across MFW. Because of their ages, we started right in with ECC and have continued through the remainder of the five year cycle. It's been really good for us, and we've enjoyed it immensely. Next year it's going to be so different. (A post on our choices for next year is coming later this summer.) :)

Bible: This year we will be learning (reviewing) basic Christian beliefs and memorizing key Bible passages. We finished the verses (9-12) from 1 Peter chapter 2.

History and Geography: 

Project-wise: We only read about oil refining, making Xhosa bead necklaces, and monuments. I had sold our set of books a week earlier than I had anticipated so I was trying to get us through the last week of work as quickly as possible. 

We also did the outlines and writing from outlines, timeline pieces, and maps. 

I added in a review and post-test for the states and capitals and they did some review of the work they accomplished during the year.

Science: We're  using the World of Science reading assignments to review what we learned this summer.
Tenor completed a cave painting art piece for science.

Other MFW: 

Music:  We have the iPod playing at lunch most days. We listened to our hymns playlist and have been singing through each of the hymns we learned the past two years. We don't often sing hymns in church (like maybe 1 or 2 at Christmas) so singing them at home is a treat.

I'm excited about next year's art and music from Harmony Fine Arts. But I hadn't thought about singing hymns next year. I just might add some in. They'll love it. ;)
Our very last day of school, we were able to go to the local symphony to hear their American composer concert. It included Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F. Best part: tickets were free through the public library.

 

Art: They completed the lessons that hadn't been assigned over the past four years. It's an optional thing but I added it in for our last week.

Extras:

Web:

You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 17-34.

Current Events notebooking sheet

Videos:

The Presidents by the History Channel (goes through George W. Bush and has a short clip on the first ladies)

Favorite Books: 

Bill Clinton by Mike Venezia
George W. Bush by Mike Venezia
So You Want to Be President by Judith St. George

They're finishing off some book basket titles, some of their literature reading list selections (that they had ALL year to read), science work (Tenor), and sewing (Soprano). Then that's it, y'all. That.is.it. :)

Awww! One in middle school, one in high school...one proud mama.