Happy 10th Birthday, Emma!

My youngest daughter had her 10th birthday! She had a VERY busy weekend. We began celebrating by taking last Friday off school. As homeschoolers, we always take a day off in honor of a child's birthday. We went to Olive Garden and Barnes and Noble Friday afternoon, and Friday night, Emily had her best friend over to spend the night. They only live 2 houses away from each other, so we normally don't do overnights. The only problem we had was her friend goes to public school, and is used to getting up WAY earlier than us. And is quite chatty at 5:30 a.m. I made her blueberry muffins for breakfast, and Emily opened her presents later in the morning. This is the only picture I took of any of her birthday events:

She had more presents. The above picture is only what I got her. April bought her a box of 10 dolphin puzzles, and a light-sketcher thing from Crayola. Her best friend bought her a Barbie and a coloring book. Her step-dad gave her $10 and her favorite candies.

One of the things she asked for was a pair of roller skates. I wasn't able to get them, but Saturday afternoon Emma, her friend, and Colleen went to the skating rink. Overall they had fun, although some high school kids were being very mean to Emily in the beginning. She kept falling, because we only go skating about once a year. Instead of helping her, they laughed at her and made fun of her, and she began crying. Colleen, who is rarely nice to Emily herself, didn't like OTHER people being mean to her sister, and wanted to talk to the older kids directly. Emily didn't want her to, so they told they rink manager, who took care of it. Other than that, they all had fun skating, playing arcade games, and playing laser-tag, but both my daughters' legs were very sore the next day, and Emma also got 2 huge blisters and several new bruises for her birthday. : (

That night we went out to a local steakhouse for her birthday supper. Emma's favorite food is steak. We came home, and she had brownies, in lieu of cake. Not a single one of my children like cake. They all choose another dessert. With the exception of too little sleep, and too many skating falls, she had a good birthday.

I can't quite grasp that my little Emma is alreaady 10. It sure doesn't seem like a decade since I had my dark-haired little girl. Her personality has never wavered. Emily is my sensitive child, my art-loving, nature-loving, musical, theatrical girl, and she has the biggest, most loving heart of all my girls. I have never seen her NOT offer to share whatever she has. She is always there to jump in and help when needed. She will cry at the drop of a hat, whether from sadness or unfairness in her world, or joy at the beauty in life. She still isn't too big to cuddle on laps, or freely hug those she loves. She loves puns, loves math, and loves art, music, puzzles, animals, and nature. She's one of the smartest children I've ever seen, rarely needing to be told twice how to do anything. She's the one I hate to disappoint, but the one who it seems I am always short-changing, due to her thoughtful, giving nature. This little girl was a big surprise when I found out I was expecting her, but she is SUCH a wonderful gift from God, and I am so blessed to be her mom.

Emily, I love you with all my heart. You are a wonderful daughter! I am so thankful to have you in my life.

ACE World Geography 9th Grade Review

I've never used anything from ACE before. I've heard many negative reviews, and not so many positive ones. The reviews I've read all say it is too "easy", or that students just read the paces, and "regurgitate" the answers in fill in the blank, multiple choice workbooks. Parents also complain that their children don't retain the information they read.

I beg to differ. Unsure what to use for Colleen's 9th grade year for social studies, I researched several options. Eventually I came down to deciding between Abeka's 9th grade World Geography, and ACE's. The deciding factors were 1.) price. ACE is several hundred dollars less expensive than Abeka, and 2.) A comparison from a fellow homeschool mom who owns both of these. I figured, for the price, I might as well give it a shot, and see for myself.

Colleen has just completed the first PACE. Normally, a pace is to take about 3 weeks to read, answer, do the mapwork, and do the self checks and final test. We took over 4 weeks, due to the deaths in our family last month, and the plumbing and vet emergencies we had. Is it easy? Colleen says, "Yes." Does she have to mindlessly regurgitate answers? Yes, some of the time. She reads, and answers questions, just like any other publisher or textbook. She answers FAR more questions than were she to use a textbook curriculum, and although many of them ARE just multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank, she also has mapwork, and open ended questions that require thought. She can not just skim through her reading, because she would not be able to answer the questions without fully reading the material, and she spends much time flipping back and forth from her workbook pages, (called an Activity Pac) and her actual reading in the PACE. She spends maybe 30 to 45 minutes a day with this subject. She says it is interesting, not boring. (Which it is; I read the PACE too.) It is colorful, which believe it or not, I never knew ACE was, till I had it in my hands. Colleen likes that they explain things, and not just write a bunch of facts, with no explanation. She doesn't like the mapwork, but she has never liked any mapwork in any curriculum.

She averaged an A throughout the PACE, usually only missing 2 or 3 questions, if that, each day. Last week she had her test. I warned her to study, and her reply was, "Studying is stupid. I don't need to study." I thought, "Hmm. We'll see about that tomorrow when you take your test then, Little Miss Smarty." Even with her begative attitude, and not studying, she certainly DID retain the material. She got an 88% on the final test. While, in my opinion, that isn't great, it isn't horrible, either. It's a good, solid B, and it's her own fault she didn't want to review or study. And actually, it gives me an even better gauge of how well she retained the information learned because she DIDN'T review it one bit.

All in all, after completing the first of `12 Paces for the year, both Colleen and I like ACE's 9th grade World Geography. She did well. She found it interesting. We both prefer it to the standard, boring, dry textbook production of the topic. There is virtually no lesson planning or teacher-intensiveness to it. She can do this completely independently, with me only helping her if she truly can not find something, and me to grade the test and self-checks. I like it so well that I would definitely consider, and AM considering, using ACE for some other subjects. I wouldn't want to use this format for every subject, but I wish I had checked it out much sooner than going-into-my-6th-year-of-homeschooling.

Look Who Can Smile Now : )

Brendan, not quite 3 months old...