Another Year of School

It has been a long time since I posted a blog about homeschooling, and quite a bit has changed since then.  This year we have four kids in school:  Jessica in 6th, Eric in 5th, Emily in 2nd, and Megan in kindergarten.  The three oldest kids have rearranged their bedrooms to fit their desks in there, which is a better working environment for them--less distractions if they are not in the same area as the two-year-old. :-)

This year Jessica and Eric are taking science via DVD from Bob Jones.  This company and its science teacher came very recommended by other people from church, and our kids are learning a lot.  Jessica and Eric were also interested in learning Spanish, which I said they could do as long as it didn't interfere with their Chinese!  I loved Spanish myself, so it's fun for me to take it with them too.  That is also done on DVD.  So we moved one of the TVs that the owner of this flat had left here into the boys' bedroom and bought a DVD player, and now Jessica and Eric do their DVD classes in there.

Learning about chemical weathering  

Doing one of their science experiments on the 

balcony outside our flat--making a volcanic eruption

Jessica and Eric are also taking Bible from a different teacher this year--Mike VanderVeen in Randolph.  Mike has been videotaping his class lectures and putting those on a website for our kids, and has also emailed me worksheets and tests--and does the grading for me. Last year he also included Jessica in a reading unit he did with his class.  We cannot express enough appreciation to Mike for all the work he has done for our family!

My husband continues to teach Bible and science to Emily and Megan, and often Jason sits in on the classes too.

 

We have joined another homeschooling family from church for art class once a week.  We meet on Wednesdays, at our house after Bible study every other week and at their house the opposite weeks.  Nichelle Wong is in 7th grade ("Secondary 1" in Singapore) and in her first year of homeschooling, and her mom found some drawing DVDs taught from a Christian perspective.  Jessica and Eric are taking and enjoying that class.

Nichelle, Jessica, and Eric (and Jason!) taking art at our place

One of the youth from church, Tze Yan, comes to our house once a week to do a craft with the younger kids.

Tze Yan's mom, Jean, still comes to our house every Thursday afternoon to teach us Chinese.  In January we started learning the Chinese characters, and it is very fun to be able to read some words in Chinese as we go around the city!  We also understood a few more words at this year's Mooncake Gospel Meeting at church, where the speech is given in Chinese each year.  Jessica, Eric, and I take the class from Jean, and just this school year I started teaching the younger girls Chinese.

The rest of the classes are mine to teach.

Kindergarten work stations like Heritage has--Megan working on her "A" journal page

 (A is for animals, in case you look closely and see frogs on the top! :-))

Calendar work

Doing the "revise and proofread" part of Eric's English writing unit

Emily doing her math worksheet

We think often of the teachers and students in the Protestant Reformed schools, and pray for them when we begin our school day.  May God bless the education of His covenant children.