Semester Wrap-Up

This morning began early with goodbyes just as the sky was lightening from black to dark grey to light grey.

Laurel and Hunter popped in late last night. Randy, Duncan, and I had found the perfect Christmas tree (full but not fat) and put up the lights a few nights ago, waiting for sister to come home so that we could put the ornaments on together. She was so surprised and delighted; she thought she would miss out on decorating this year. Her smile was totally worth the week of trying to figure out when, exactly, we three were free at the same time so we could get the tree and have it up and ready on Thursday night.

I listened and watched from my perch on the couch. Laurel sat beneath the tree, opened the ornament box, and pulled them out one by one. Because she is an organizer, she put them in specific stacks: Dad's outdoorsy ornaments, Mom's kid-picture ornaments, travel, homemade, artisan, etc. Predictably, Randy says, "Where are the icicles? Did Mom throw them all away yet?" and Duncan made a beeline for the Energizer bunny and the bacon. The plastic icicles, the plastic Energizer bunny, the bacon: the ornaments that torture Laurel and me each year, colliding with our vision of white lights and matching decorations. Truthfully, I wouldn't want our tree any other way. I love the mishmash of exquisite and ordinary, of artisan-made and child-made, of the big orange UT Santa and the delicate heart from Austria.

But back to this morning. Laurel and Hunter left early. They had over 3 hours to drive this morning to get to Appalachian State University by noon. Next year  is a big question mark for all three of our kids: Jesse to law school, Duncan to college, and Laurel to graduate school. This is the first of her graduate school tours. Jesse should get his LSAT scores any day now, and those will help determine where he is headed in the fall. Duncan has narrowed down his choices to two of the three colleges to which he applied and was accepted. So we're all just waiting, watching, and weighing pros and cons.

It's an exciting time!!

I should be melancholy, I know. And I could be, if I let myself get wrapped in memories of mornings spent snuggled under blanket reading How the Grinch Stole Christmas with kids in pajamas drinking hot chocolate, or even when early mornings meant milk dripped on the table, Legos on the floor, and shrieks of "GIVE IT BACK!" rattling the windows.

I could really get melancholy when I look at these.

Just a few of Duncan's senior pictures. You know. My baby. Thank you to my dear friend, Donna, for these amazing photos. We've been in this together for a long, long time.

But I'm not melancholy, even though we are just wrapping up Duncan's next-to-last semester of high school. My next-to-last semester of homeschooling, which I've been doing for 19 years now.

Nineteen years.

But I'm not melancholy this morning. It's business as usual. A half an hour of "WAKE UP, DUNCAN!" He'll wake up, work on his German for awhile, work on his essay (an analysis of horror films), and then head off to work at Kroger.

No Christmas crafts around here any more, and I'm okay with that. No Charlie Brown's Christmas, no Rudolph, no Frosty the Snowman. I'm okay with that. I'm even okay with not reading any of the Christmas books that make me cry, because once I get started, I may not stop.

 Linked up with the Weekly Wrap-Up

Field Trip: Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary

Sounds weird, right?

This year, my friends Amy and Diane and I decided that we were going to do a Tennessee Explorations class with our boys, who are juniors and seniors. We gave the boys the task of finding places in Tennessee that they want to visit.

Their first choice: Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. They didn't have to think twice about that one.

A couple of years ago, the boys chanced by the closed-down penitentiary on a Boy Scout camping trip. They begged Randy, who is the Scoutmaster, to let them "explore" (AKA: trespass), but of course he refused (with some reluctance, if I know my husband). :)

Imagine how thrilled they were to learn that Brushy Mountain opened for tours a couple of months ago! As Duncan said on the ride over, "This is a dream come true."

Ah, teenage boys.

I have to admit: it was a fascinating and sobering field trip. It's just been open six weeks or so, and I suspect that in a couple of years, it will lose a lot of its rough, raw quality that makes it feel so authentic and, well, alarming. Creepy. Sad. We visited on a Monday afternoon, and there were only about 25 other people there; however, the tour guide said that it is absolutely packed on weekends.

Right now, you can just wander around almost everywhere on the compound, although a few places are off limits.

"The Hole"

The documentary in the museum is fantastic, but best of all, a former prison guard showed up and invited us to join him for a free tour. He was amazing. He took us through the compound and told all kinds of stories, pointed out where murders occurred and how prisoners escaped, and just gave life to the men who lived and worked here for decades. He related how the guards treated the prisoners with respect and dignity, regardless of what they did on the outside. It was really amazing. While we were fortunate to be there on a weekday and happened upon a free tour, I would definitely pay for one. Former inmates also give some tours.

This tour is not for everyone. It was, after all, a maximum security prison. We commented that we could feel a heaviness around us, sense a sadness and even the cold chill of evil. I think young kids would have nightmares—or at least I would have. This made me think of the "Scared Straight" movie from the late 1970s. While the boys enjoyed a sense of exploration and adventure, they also felt the danger and hopelessness that is pervasive even now at the prison.

It was not our most cheerful fall field trip ever, but it really was an enlightening experience!

Linked up with the Homeschool Blog Link-up and  Weekly Wrap-Up

Weekly Wrap-Up: Beginning of Our Very Last Year

We're a month into our last year of homeschooling. Or more like: I'm a month into it, but Duncan is closer to two months in. 

Duncan on top of Mt. LeConte as part of his Great Smokies Experience class

Duncan started his senior year in mid-July with a dual enrollment class at our local liberal arts college, Maryville College.  The Great Smokies Experience is a phenomenal 12-day program open to high school juniors and seniors nationwide. They spent the majority of the class living at Tremont Institute in the park, with the first few days on campus at Maryville College and at a few other local spots. Activities included hikes,  a canoe trip,  scientific species surveys, exploring the park at night, an interpreted climb up Mt. LeConte, as well as daily readings and time in a classroom discussing environmental issues. Duncan absolutely loved every bit of it. He said that although he's grown up in the Smokies, he had an entirely new perspective on his big backyard as a result of this class. It was truly an amazing experience! He earned a science credit for high school as well as credit for a three-hour Introduction to Environmental Issues and Sustainability Studies.

Duncan plunged right into intensive studying for the ACT as soon as he returned from his Smokies program. As soon as that was over, he began an online Brave Writer class: Expository Essay—Exploratory and Persuasive. For the first time in 16 years, I am not teaching at our co-op, so it was time for him to take a writing class from a different source. Of course, as a Brave Writer instructor myself, I feel 100% confident that he is getting the absolute best instruction available.

Besides his writing class, he is finishing up odds and ends on several different Boy Scout merit badges. He already has his Eagle Scout award, but he had a bunch of badges that he started last year that he didn't quite finish. 

Here Duncan is finishing his Art merit badge—finally! He's been working on this one for a year.

 He'll be wrapping up health this semester, and we have plans in the works for a Tennessee field trip class with a few of his friends. First stop: Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. Because boys. 

And, of course, we'll be doing a couple of final college visits, and then he'll begin the application process.

I took beginning-of-the-year pictures while Laurel was still here, so I could get senior year pics of both of them. I also begged them to do one last "All About Me" page, and they sweetly obliged. They are adorable.

We've been doing these at the start of each school year in various forms, and I so treasure these memories. I keep them in our Big Box of Books.

How can it be that I have a senior in high school, a senior in college, and one that has been out of college for three years already? And so I begin the end of all these years—a whole career of teaching my children, of waking up in the morning so thankful for these three and for this life together.

I have taken great joy and satisfaction in lesson plans, looking forward to that moment when, at 10:00, school begins. I have also locked myself in my bedroom just to get a few minutes peace. Those days seem so long ago now, those days of squabbling and tattling and sweet bodies piled up next to me on the couch, those days of precious drawings and playing Beanie Babies and Barbies and building Lego towns. Those days of forming letters, sounding out words, and telling time, of memorizing multiplication tables and remembering all that punctuation. 

One last year: I'm savoring every moment, every chance to sit with Duncan at the dining room table, every movie we watch together, every field trip we carve out for ourselves. I may even get up the courage to look through our Big Box of Books one of these days.

Linked up with the Homeschool Link-up and  Weekly Wrap-Up

-->

Big News in our SmallWorld!

It's been an exciting start to the school year! But really, this post has nothing to do with school. It's all about my girl,who is a senior in college.

SHE'S GETTING MARRIED!

We're so excited for them!! Laurel and Hunter are an absolutely perfect match. I mean, really, really, really. It's such an amazing feeling to know that your daughter is marrying a good, kind, smart, funny,  adventurous man who is her best friend. We are so blessed, they are so blessed, and we are ready to plan a wedding!

And as if getting engaged wasn't enough, she turned 21 just a few days later. We celebrated before she went back to school.

Celebrating at college with her best friend forever and birthday buddy!

That's what's been happening in our world!

More about Duncan, my one and only student, next week. I really am still homeschooling!

Linked up with the Weekly Wrap-up

Senior Year {All Around}

Monday will begin senior year for my younger two: senior year of high school for Duncan and senior year of college for Laurel.

Tomorrow, we'll take Laurel back to Nashville for college. Before she leaves, I'm going to measure them both one last time, and they are each going to make one last "All About Me" book. If Jesse lived at home, I would make him do it, too.

Next week, I'll take out our Big Box of Books and look through all their "All About Me" books.  I'll laugh. I'll take a few pictures and send to Laurel, no doubt.

I'll get really, really choked up, like I will do on and off again all year.
 

Because it's not just their senior year, it's MY senior year, too. 

I'm heading into my 19th and final year of homeschooling, and I'll be wrapping up and reflecting all year on my blog. I'll be preparing for the next stage in my life, as I've been working toward for the past couple of years.

It's scary and sad and exciting all at once. 

I'm taking extra time and pleasure this year in preparing Duncan's year. I'll post more about that next week as we begin, but we're heading into senior year with plenty of space for both fine-tuning academics and pursuing passions.

Come back often for one last year of homeschooling in our own Small World. What a year it's going to be!

Linked up with the Weekly Wrap-Up

Junior Year (or Senior Year 1) Wrap-Up

I think I can officially say that school is over now. We usually stop before Memorial Day, but Duncan was taking an online Brave Writer class (Photography and Writing) through May and studying for the ACT, which he took last weekend. So... we are now done!

Because we are doing a 5-year high school plan with Duncan, I guess this technically was his first senior year. I'm not exactly sure how this all works, but I'm just going with it. Basically, we skipped 7th grade but then decided last year that Duncan really would benefit from graduating at 18 rather than 17. Five-year high school is becoming quite  a trend around here. It gives kids a chance to explore more classes, have a little more free time, take dual enrollment classes, mature a bit more. I am so glad we listened to that still, small voice that said: "He's not ready."

Our year has been so relaxed but so productive. We've had time to incorporate "extras" while sharpening some specific skills. Had he been pushed to graduate, some of these things just would not have happened because he would have been so pressed for time. Instead, here are just a few of the awesome things that happened:


Ten day trip to Northern Tier Adventure Camp in Minnesota: a week of dog-sledding, skiing, and more.

Received his Eagle Scout Award

 


Plenty of adventures:

Mountain biking

Spent a week in New York working on my brother's farm

Spent an entire night in the Philadelphia airport on the return flight!

Whitewater rafting

20-mile hike in the Smokies

Rock climbing at Torrent Falls, Kentucky

Awarded Scout of the Year for the local and district VFW

Student Ambassador for HonorAir Knoxville Flight #26. Duncan got to serve as an escort to four Vietnam veterans during this one-day trip to Washington DC to see the Korean, Vietnam, WWII memorials, and watch the changing of the guard at Arlington. What an amazing opportunity!

Lots of hanging out with friends

 

 

Classes

Besides all the extras, Duncan's classes were fabulous this year. He took Art Appreciation/Art history and Classic Literature at co-op. (Both were classes I taught.) We had loads of fun, and he worked really hard. Books read and discussed included: The Odyssey, Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, Fahrenheit 451, The Count of Monte Cristo, Hamlet, Lord of the Flies, and lots of short stories, which the students were responsible for teaching. It was a fabulous year.

He also did Plant Science with my Dad, ACT Prep at home, the Photography and Writing class through Brave Writer, and current events at home. I'm probably missing something, but those were the highlights!

Art Appreciation/History class trip

Literature Class

Plant Science with his grandfather

So what's up next year? I'll save that for another post.

And a report on my two homeschooled graduates:

Jesse is still working for American Airlines and just took the LSAT earlier this week. He plans to go to law school in Fall 2019.

Jesse and two of my other first students at my literature class party.

Laurel just finished her junior year at Lipscomb University! I can  hardly believe it. She again made the Provost's List with a 4.0. She is living and working in Nashville this summer. She works at the same elementary school where she works throughout the school year, and is just having the kind of fabulous summer that every 20-year-old should have.

Hunter graduated; she's next!

And that ends our school year! 18 down.... one to go.

More on next year later!

Linked up with Homeschool Highlights and  the Weekly Wrap-up