Home education diary, July-December 2006
July and August
These months were taken up with moving house, and settling into our own home. We had to decide on colour-schemes, paint, choose curtains, arrange furniture, and also buy some new items. Plenty of details about this can be found on my Cyprus blog pages for July 2006 and August 2006; I mention them in passing here as the whole process of moving house is, in my view, very important educationally. I hope that having helped and observed us during the past few months will stand Tim in better stead for the future, if and when he decides to buy a house of his own.
We were also delighted that Tim did well in all his music exams, receiving (to his amazement) a distinction for his Grade 5 music theory.
For the last week of August, Tim and I both helped at a church holiday club; he was in charge of the music, and I was the leader of a group of 4-6-year-old children. We had a good time although it was exhausting, and very hot. I'm not sure I will do that again!
Daniel is still doing well on the Doulos and we are excited to be visiting him in Singapore in the Autumn. He has told us that home education has been an excellent start, enabling him to know how to learn, and how to get along with a wide variety of people of all ages and many cultures.
September 2006
We received information packs about the Open Theology Course which Tim will be starting soon, and continued working on the new house - painting, organising, and generally settling in. It seems odd that Daniel has never seen this house, although of course we have sent him photographs and plenty of email about it.
A big milestone in September was when Tim celebrated his 18th birthday. So now both my sons are legally adults. He is eager to learn to drive but I am not sure when we will get around to that. He will need to take a theory test first.
Tim's piano teacher from the past several years has moved back to the UK, so he has started working with another teacher; he says she is excellent, and she seems to like teaching an advanced and motivated student.
October 30th
Today marks another milestone in that Tim FINALLY completed the last of his literature assignments from the NCSC so I packaged them all up to be sent to the moderating centre in the UK.
November 15th
Tim seems to be enjoying his Open Thelogy course, other than various administrative hassles that plagued his first few weeks. There's an online section, lots of coursebooks, and his third essay is due this week, but then no more assignments until February. He's finding it all quite challenging but has said he's glad he did the ACE Biblical studies courses as they did give him a useful overview of the Bible, albeit ata basic level, and ensured he read it all at least once.
I'm not really sure what the future holds for me now home education has come to an end. Theoretically Tim is still being educated at home, but not by me.. all I have to do is pay the fees and order text-books when needed. I don't even read his essays though I offered to. They get emailed to course tutors who will mark them and comment on them - we hope constructively.
December 21st
Tim received his level 2 NCSC certificate a few days ago, so I guess that really is the end of home education as we know it. And a good point to end this home education diary.
I'm still trying to figure out what I should/could be doing in 2007...
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