Our School Year 2007
School for 2007 was quite different to any other year! We moved three times, once being an international move, and so school was challenging, to say the very least. But it just confirmed to me the wonders of homeschooling and allowing the children to learn. If they had been in public school, it would have been more unsettling to them.
During the year I had many times when I thought, “Aaaah! Are we getting anything done?!” Now as I look back over the year and plan for the following year, I see that despite all the moving and changes, we did get a lot done. Phew! Here is a peak at what we achieved:
Bible
We continued our personal devotions with Daniel and Elizabeth using The One Year Book of Devotions for Boys/Girls. Matthew kept going with reading the children’s Bible and writing down the thought for the day in his Quiet Time journal. Midway through the year I ordered some Lifepacs, and I was quite happy with the Bible ones. The kids enjoyed them and worked through them at their own pace.
Maths
We were all very happy with Maths this year! We finally have a curriculum that we ALL like!!! After trying so many different things, Teaching Textbooks is a keeper. Daniel finished Pre-Algebra and started Algebra. Elizabeth was doing her other Maths but made a start on Math 6 as soon as we got it. I figured most of the early stuff in each textbook was revision, so she might as well start instead of waiting for the new school year. She loves it!
Matthew just plodded along with various Maths textbooks and drill sheets printed out using Mathematics Worksheets Factory.
Language Arts
Plenty of copywork was part of our Language Arts program. We also incorporated writing with other subjects, like History and Science. The kids each had some workbooks that they did spelling, grammar and comprehension from. I like to get ebooks for them from ebookdestination. These are some of the books Daniel completed:
Take Five Minutes - Fascinating Facts from the World Almanac
Elizabeth and Matthew did more copywork than Daniel, but also used some workbooks.
Reading
I’ve long since given up on trying to record the books the children have read! The kids are constantly reading. We used the library a lot this year, borrowed books from friends, and hunted down bargains in the second hand shops. I really can’t keep up with good books for them! We didn’t use as many Robinson books this year since we were traveling so much and I didn’t have my printer. That is where the libraries came in handy and also thrift shops.
I don’t think we did any read alouds this year! The children have all decided that they would prefer to read the books on their own because they can finish them quicker! LOL!
Science
Daniel used Apologia 7 this year. We both struggled with it, to be honest. It is a fantastic book, but there are really no guidelines for doing how much and when. For a few weeks I made out a schedule of what he should get done, but it took a lot of time and I got behind. So we didn’t get through it in a year. Towards the end of the year I bought Live and Learn’s Learn ‘n Folder to go with the textbook. This helped a bit with setting some pace. I have found out that there are a few websites that sell a plan for using the textbook and I might have to look into that for next year.
Elizabeth and Matthew did some science workbooks during the first half of the year, and then we started Apologia Astronomy. They quite enjoyed that and I also bought the Learn ‘n Folder to go with that. We didn’t finish it, however.
History
History this year was Book 2 of Story of the World. Along with this, we also did some more in depth study of the Middle Ages. We started making a castle using this Usborne book. We made notebooking pages using a variety of workbooks and some lapbook units from Hands of a Child.
We took a detour towards the end of the year to study a bit about the Australian gold rush, since we live not too far from Sovereign Hill.
We started a time line in our rental home, but didn’t get too far since we moved again!
Geography
Geography was part of daily life. I did have some times of “deliberate” Geography, where we sat down and did some work on maps, latitutude, longitude, etc. We did some Australian Geography while we traveled interstate and around the state visiting family and friends.
It was also part of life while we were in the Middle East for the first half of the year. The children learned first hand about the desert - landforms, sand dunes, desert animals. When back in Australia they were able to compare the different landforms that are here - bush, sea, rivers. Camping in both countries was also part of life and learning.
We continued to learn the names of different countries in different regions of the world through Geography Songs. We have found this to be such a useful tool to remember the names and locations of countries. We mostly concentrated on regions where we had been or those close by to us. These were all the parts of Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia. Oh yes, we also did Australia and parts of Africa!
Other Areas
Other areas we spent time in were languages - we started Arabic studies and Latin. The Arabic studies were cut short when we moved back to Australia. We made a start on Latin, using Prima Latina.
Sports consisted of mostly swimming. We joined a local co-op group in Term 4 for swimming lessons.
Art and craft consisted of doing projects like painting, woodwork and drawing. Music continued with piano lessons, learning songs, and some music theory.
Looking back, it was a good year. We had as much consistency as we could with all our moves. The children grew in their academic areas, as well as physically, as Daniel is now taller than me! 
Routines and more stability would have been good, but the lack of these were also part of our learning for the year. The children were more independent, with Daniel rising early regularly to complete his schoolwork before the others had even started! Elizabeth was keen with her Maths and able to do that independently as well, thanks to Teaching Textbooks.
Daniel worked best without distractions. He enjoyed the early hours of the day where he just got stuck into his work and got it done. He had his check list of things to do, and worked independently through these. He then joined in the group activities later in the day. Most of his free time was spent reading and playing with lego.
Elizabeth in particular had a lot of her own “learning spurts” this year. She regularly wrote poems and made her own poem collection books. She also drew a lot in her free time. She is getting really good at it, and enjoys it so much.
Matthew is still a real boy, getting distracted by everyone and everything!. He is quite capable of doing his work, when he concentrates! He enjoys to read and play imaginatively with all sorts of things - lego, cars, soft toys…..
And so ends another school year…..! “Onwards and Upwards”,.. to 2008!