The Hermitage celebrated President Andrew Jackson’s 245th birthday on March 15, 2012.

Andrew Jackson VI spoke on his ancestors. He said, “We should be proud of our ancestors but we should also focus on making them proud as well.”

Governor Bill Haslam was the keynote speaker for the ceremony.

Free birthday cake!

Living demonstrations.

The WISH Team Academy is nearing the end of its inaugural year. It’s exciting to know that we’ve almost completed our transition to home education.

Chloe is working on long division, adding fractions, mixed numbers, and the metric system in math. She has just finished studying the Solar System in science and now all of her remaining science lessons are reviews for her final exam in 5 weeks. One of her favorite subjects is language arts. Many afternoons I find her sitting on her bed working diligently in her language arts textbook. She also continues to go to a tutor, Ms. Caffey, who assists her with creative writing skills and penmanship. Ms. Caffey is so much more than a tutor for the children. She has high expectations for them in every area of their lives. She encourages them to work like an A+ student instead of settling at being an average student. She’s like a grandmother to the kids for they never leave her house without a “sweet treat” in hand. Ms. Caffey is one of the best things that has happened to our family this year!

As you may have seen on our blog over the past 4 months, we have all enjoyed and benefitted from Chloe’s Tennessee history study. She is now studying the great inventions of the early 1900’s. As the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster approaches, we’ve been reading about it and watching documentaries. We let the kids know that history isn’t always happy or glamorous and so many times it’s heartbreaking. Yesterday, as we were watching, stories were being told of children who watched from a lifeboat as the huge steamer was sinking into the Atlantic with their Father still aboard. That proved to be too much for Chloe, she asked to turn it off. In other news, Chloe will play Ms. Noah, in Noah’s Rainbow, at church in May!

In Bible, we’re all studying King Nebuchadnezzar and his capture of God’s people in Judah.

Clark is moving right along with his reading. He enjoys Magic Tree House books immensely! We also work on recognizing above-grade level words and he has spelling words each week. He also goes to Ms. Caffey for writing and penmanship. When he initially had his cast on, it bothered him that his hand writing would be affected. He has worked extremely hard to keep his writing (to use Ms. Caffey’s word) “impeccable” despite his cast. We continue to work on telling time, addition/subtraction, counting money, and 3-D shapes. While he doesn’t formally have history yet, I get Civil War questions from him daily. Over our summer “break”, we are going to have a 6-8 week unit on the Civil War. Hopefully, after that, we’ll both be able to answer his barrage of questions!

Chloe and Clark will have their Achievement Testing the first week of April.

And Cole, well, he’s every bit of a two year old boy! Between dumping all of Clark’s Lego sets on the floor, pouring a WHOLE gallon of sweet tea onto the kitchen floor, and going head first into the fish pond; he keeps us shaking our heads. I’m sure one of us prayed for patience at some point and now God is giving us opportunities to develop patience. He’s so stinking cute though it’s hard to be upset with him for too long. He still goes to pre-school two days a week and will continue to do so next year.

I get asked all the time “How do you like homeschooling?” I always respond, “We love it!” We have good and bad days, just like everyone else but we are enjoying this lifestyle so much that I can’t imagine doing anything else. We love the relaxed mornings, days where the kids and I don’t have to get out at all, afternoons where Cole can get his full nap, grocery shopping in the middle of the day, personal attention at the bank when the kids take their savings deposits, being able to travel during the week, having lessons in the tepee, spontaneous field trips when the weather is nice, flexibility to speed up on a favorite subject or slowing down on a challenging one, mid-week lunches with Dad, being together during severe storms, and many other reasons. But mainly, I enjoy being able to watch the children grow and develop!

We are in the process of deciding on curriculum for next year. We have seen the children’s strengths and weaknesses and we’re praying that we make the right decisions based on their needs. We are also considering sending them to a one-day a week homeschool enrichment program that will enable them to interact with other homeschoolers their age while attending 5 different enrichment classes each Monday. Until then, we’re looking forward to what the Lord has in store for us over the summer!!