SO - a lot has happened!
Hope successfully turned her rejection to Praxis into energy and raised over $20,000 for Operation Underground Railroad! It is such a worthy cause to support....saving children from being sold as sexual playthings. (It is so horrible that a person can barely think about it. Check out their website if you want to learn more about how to help. O.U.R. website) She was in the musical Narnia with the Youth Performance Company as the character Mr. Tumnus. It was a lot of work and time, but she thoroughly enjoyed it! She also sought out a way to make income, which resulted in a nanny job. She is "on call", but can refuse any assignments. It has worked out well. If she has time, she goes - if not, she doesn't. She also started an internship with Terry's company, New Vision Engineering, in the marketing department. She is learning a lot and we hear a lot of good things about her from the owner. She continues to listen to educational self-improvement and business-minded audios and read books from the Life System. And - on top of it all, she reapplied to Praxis and was overwhelmingly accepted! She is already learning a lot, but the official start date is January 3rd. She even has her own web page set up already at hopeszymanski.com !
To be true to the title of this blog, I am thankful we home schooled Hope because she has learned to be a very self-directed learner. She isn't afraid to be adventurous, set high goals, and go in a different direction than most people would. At the same time, she is very aware of how she affects others and is continuing to strive to learn more and more about how to serve others. And - above all, she cares about God's people, especially the little innocent ones that Operation Underground Railroad saves and rehabilitates. See the article Life Blog posted here .
Sam had a challenging semester. He had 12 credits of college classes and I would have to say that the biggest lessons he learned were not the actual skills and details of the classes, even though his writing did improve quite a bit. :-) (Mary Mueller would be proud!) He learned about time management and about effort, which will be so valuable to him going forward. There is definitely some regret for not trying a little harder in a couple of classes because he was very close to the next letter grade in both. I don't think much more needed to be said. On one hand, he has regrets, but on the other hand he learned that if he tries a little harder he can do very well.
I am thankful we have been home schooling Sam because we would not have done PSEO otherwise and the experience was very helpful. He will be much more ready for the fall of 2019 when he steps into some college classes as a freshman. (He is also very excited that History of Western Civ is out of the way! LOL!!)
Rose had an interesting semester. She broke her arm in mid-September, which led to a few days off from expected school activities. I realized part way through the semester that she was either bored with math or was not getting the addition of sums as quickly as I'd like. (I am referring to not counting on her fingers, but by seeing the numbers and mentally rearranging parts of numbers to add quickly. I found that Hope and Sam did much better in math after having mastered this.) So - we moved away from the normal math curriculum and played games instead. Cribbage, math dice, and Adding War became more of our normal routine than going through the book. I also make her figure things out on her own when she asks questions about things like how much money she would have left if she bought a pirate costume, for example. Purely hypothetical, for sure. ;-) NOT!
I am thankful we are home schooling Rosie for many reasons. When her arm was broken, the doctors and nurses kept explaining about when she could go back to school and what her restrictions would be. (It was a pretty bad break which required surgery, pins, and a cast.) Being at home allowed us to do what she could when she could - (and we didn't need to take her out of school for her follow-up appointments.) And her ears still worked, so I could still read to her, which is most of what we do anyway. Recently she has been exploring her interest in theater, so besides being in a couple of plays, she actually wrote a play! It is too cute, and actually pretty good. Mom did the typing, but the rest of it is her original work....and she is working on gathering friends to be in her play so she can direct it. (She even studied her director and watched how she put her shows together.)
Rose met a little girl much like herself in one of her plays this semester. They are both very strong-willed, outgoing, adventurous, creative, funny, and precocious - which, for Rosie, sometimes leads to problems. This other little girl's mother told me they were having trouble with her at school, but more of in a way that makes them think she just needs a different environment, so they pulled her out. I am thankful that Rose is at home where we can help her develop in a way that will hopefully keep her amazing qualities intact and let them flourish, while still teaching her how to play nice with others, including us. :-)
Well - I committed to Sam that I would blog every day for 90 days and that I want him to do the same. Praxis founder, Isaac Morehouse, recommends it and has the Praxis participants do it as well. It develops a person. It makes them more creative. It holds a person accountable to something and builds a positive habit, which leads to believing you can build other positive habits. I can't promise every one will be this long. In fact, I promise they won't! I may have to stray from the original concept once in a while, but will try to tie it in somehow. :-)
Until next time!
Heidi
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