Algebra ~ High School Transcripts

I am recording the Big Teen's high school summaries. This one is for his algebra.

The Big Teen learned algebra in the 12th grade. For Algebra I, he used Teaching Textbooks. I really liked this program. It was very well laid out and helped him work somewhat independently. Certainly, a child without special needs would have no trouble using this program independently. 

In addition to Teaching Textbooks, we used several algebra computer games and drills on the Internet. He also enjoyed the Living Math book, A Gebra Named Al. He survived Algebra and learned enough to have a general understanding of the concepts. It was by far the toughest course for him to get through in his entire high school career. We are both so glad he is all done!

Blessings, Dawn

11th Grade Creative Writing

This was by far one of my son's least favorite subjects. Writing and typing come very hard to my dear son. Everything is difficult about it, from the thought process to the spelling to the cramps it gives his hands to write anything more than a sentence.  However, it is important to be able to put your thoughts to paper. Listed below are some of the ways we found to help him express himself through writing.   

• Writing thank you notes
• Small reports of famous people: Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Alexander Hamilton, and Jack the Ripper
• Emailing friends
• Filling out surveys for his volunteer work
• Mini reports for Government and World History
• 5 book reports
• 8 Today in My Life reports
• Maintaining his blog

He also completed the Apples to Apples Spelling and Handwriting without Tears - Cursive with his occupational therapist. 

Blessings, Dawn

English III ~ U.S. and British Literature

The big teen studied lots of American and British literature for 11th grade. He enjoyed a large selection of books, some challenging for him and others more for enjoyment. Besides reading the books listed below, he also did narrations of the books. In addition, he used the Five in a Row Above and Beyond unit study with the book Hitty~Her First 100 Years. Surprisingly, he really enjoyed this unit study, even though it is based on the travels of a wooden doll. 

Here is a list of the other books he read:   

• Marlfox - Brian Jacques
• Tall Sails to Jamestown - Eugenia Stone
• The Lottery - Anne Jackson
• The Legend of Bagger Vance - Steven Prestfield
• Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
• The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne   
• The Time Machine - H.G. Wells
• The Stray - Betsy Wyeth
• The Gift of The Magi - O. Henry
• The Old Man and The Sea - Ernest Hemingway
• Little Men - Louisa Mae Alcott
• Woodswoman - Anne Bastille
• The Legend of Luke - Brian Jacques
• Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
• The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
• Hamlet - William Shakespeare
• Othello - William Shakespeare
• Mountain Valor - Gloria Houston
• Little Women - Louisa Mae Alcott
• Life is So Good - George Dawson
• The Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Patterson
• The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane
• The Dark Voyage - Alan Furst
• Death Be Not Proud - John Gunther

Blessings, Dawn

11th Grade Theater Course

I am going to try to finish transferring our lesson plan books into a summary here over the next week. If you want to see the rest of his courses, click on high school transcripts. The big teen did a year of theater in the 11th grade. This course was an elective and allowed him to explore another one of his interests.

He had the opportunity to take acting classes with a theater director in our area, Ralph Redpath. He attended 78 hours of classes that ended with three nights of performances. In the classes, he learned to work in small teams and do monologues. He especially liked doing monologues.

In addition to the classes, he also logged 21 hours of rehearsals and performances doing different skits at church. These were all directed by church teachers and written/performed by the church youth group.

Besides performing in theater, he enjoyed attending three live performances, J.B., A Midsummer Night's Dream, and STOMP.  He also saw the following musicals, plays and operas in movie form: 

• Chorus Line
• Sunset Boulevard
• Chicago
• Cyrano
• My Fair Lady
• Fiddler on the Roof
• Hello Dolly
• Rent 

Blessings, Dawn

High School Internship 11th and 12th Grade

The Big Teen is wrapping up his high school education this Friday! Whew! What a great journey it has been. I am going to try to finish transferring our lesson plan books into a summary here over the next week. 

One of the most rewarding things about homeschooling high school was watching the big teen develop his own interests and have time to follow them. It is even greater when you can count special interests as school. He has always been an animal lover and our local nature center has been a wonderful environment for the Big Teen to explore his interests.

The Big Teen has volunteered at the nature center for 6 years now. At the beginning of his 11th grade year, his boss suggested he write up a request for a high school internship. They had college interns but had never had a high school intern. The Big Teen wrote up why he thought a high school internship would be important and it was granted. He became the first high school intern and has learned so much under this title. 

He has logged more than 800 hours at the nature center over the last two years alone. His interests led him to wildlife rehabilitation, and he has trained aside the staff at the nature center. In the past year, he helped hot glue the skin back onto baby rabbits, washed snakes, glued shells back together on hurt turtles, cared for many types of baby birds that had fallen from trees, cared for numerous squirrels, rabbits, opossums, and all other manner of wildlife that people brought into the nature center. 

He has also worked in the animal department, doing everything from cleaning cages to repairing animal habitats to basic care of the permanent animals. The Big Teen especially enjoyed babysitting the baby otter while it bonded to the adult otter. It was the Big Teen's job to break up the fights when things got out of hand. He also really enjoys working with the raccoons and Buzz, the vulture. Yes, my son thinks Buzz is cute! He also likes talking about helping with the bears and mountain lions. Mostly, he likes the big animals because it gives his Mama the willies. His real love is the reptile house, and he spends a great deal of his time there working with the public and teaching them about reptiles. 

Overall, this experience has taught the Big Teen so much. He would like to be hired by that nature center, and we hope that budget cuts will not get in the way of that. No matter what, he plans on staying with the nature center in one capacity or another for many years to come.

Here he is holding one of the many snakes at the nature center.




Aww -- a baby opossum!


Here the Big Teen is showing off the nature center's ground hog. They keep her back in the rehab area because she is not thrilled with crowds.

Blessings, Dawn

In the Final Stretch

Fifty-eight days ... that is how many days are left before the Big Teen's graduation. He graduates on May 23 at the homeschool convention in Winston-Salem, with cap and gown and high school diploma. To say we are excited for him is an understatement. We are elated. So many in the medical field said he would not even survive to be making his way into adulthood. However, we are scared for him, as well. I am sure all parents go through these thoughts of "Did we do all that we could to prepare our child for adulthood?" This is doubly so when you are preparing a disabled child to make his way in the world. The Big Teen will continue to live with us for years to come, which gives my Mother's heart a sigh of relief. That will give us more time to fine tune all that we can and guide him on his journey. My Mother wants to have him do a post-graduate year next year that she will supervise, since he's not going on to college. There's still so many things he wants to learn about -- more about world religions, philosophy, US and world history, and world lit. We are very blessed that he is willing to be guided and wants to continue living with us. Nonetheless, a major milestone is on the horizon. 

We are still thinking about all the ways we would like to honor this special event. We will do the formal graduation and a nice dinner out. But it seems like there should be more ~ something else more momentous then just dinner out. We are going to be giving him a bus pass to start learning the bus system better (driving still appears out of the question at this time) and some other things to help him move more into independence. He has very few friends so having a big party doesn't seem logical. Most of our family is out of town. However, one set of grandparents will be coming for graduation and one grandmother lives here. My creative juices are a bit low with all that has to be done to get us through this final stretch. So those of you who have graduated a child or are already thinking of ideas ~ what do you suggest, considering that we have very little funds? 

The next few weeks are going to be used to finish his credit hours in chemistry and algebra. I was afraid that these two subjects would be neglected, because the Big Teen hates them -- and sure enough they have. At least 22 of the 28 credits required in this state for graduation are completed, and there are only a handful of hours left to complete two more of the remaining credits. So we are going to be burning the  midnight oil to complete the hours for algebra and chemistry credits. He will make it, but he is going to have to push a bit. Did I mention Senioritis has kicked in big time for teen and teacher?! I really want him done by May 15 so that we can rest the week before graduation. We shall see if I get my wish. Thankfully, the little ones only have 20 days to go before they have their required 180 days. Woo whoo! They will be done in no time, although they beg for school even on weekends, so I'm not sure they will be pleased about my concentrating only on the Big Teen until May 23.

Blessings, Dawn

Deciding What to Teach in High School...

I have had a few people ask me how I decide what to teach my high school student.  I am sure that everyone has a different system based on beliefs, child's interests, learning/teaching styles, and state requirements.  This is what I've done.  My big teen is now in his senior year and our system has worked well for us.  Many factors went into determining what courses to teach my son.  The following was all taken into account.

• State requirements ~ Here in North Carolina there are very few rules about high school.  There is, however, suggestions of how many times to take English, History, Math, and Science.


• My son's interests and career goals ~ I am lucky that my son knew early on that he was interested in making a career at the local nature center, which is the only one available in a large region of our state and substitutes for a zoo which we don't have in our area.  This gave us a better idea about science and internship requirements.


• My son's severe learning differences ~ Because of my son's learning differences, I knew that he would need a lot of hands-on lessons and basic math for life skills more than anything else.  Plus, we would need to lean heavily on life experiences for him to learn the most.


• My son was not college bound ~ When we started high school, my son was very sure he did not want to go to college.  Thus, we decided to follow our local high school's transcript requirements.  This is not to say we did "school in a box" at home, but we decided to do 28 credits, name our courses with similar/same names as the local high school, and give each course 100 hours.  In this way, his transcript will look very similar to our local high school and will be accepted more easily by the city government.  The city government runs the nature center, so he must be hired as a government employee to work there.

Taking all of these factors into account, I bought four lesson plan books that had room for seven subjects each.  I then labeled them by grade and put seven subjects in each one.  I did leave two subjects blank in 12th grade so there would be room as we went through the years, in case the big teen developed new interests.  By doing this, we were afforded a lot more flexibility to fill out subjects as they came along.  For example, for the past two years, the big teen has been taking a class in world history with a college professor who teaches homeschoolers.  The credit will all count under 11th grade, even though he is using 14 weeks of 12th grade to complete this course.  Another example would be physical education.  As he had the opportunity to do interesting physical education such as archery, we filled the hours in.  Math courses, which are agony for the big teen who has dyscalculia, could be spread out so that he did not have to be so pressured by them.  I was very stressed out part of last year (11th grade), concerned that my system was not going to work out.  We seemed so far behind, and I was still working out of four lesson plan books.  However, I worried in vain, as we are now on target and are currently only working out of 11th and 12th grade lesson plan books.  Furthermore, two subjects are already completed in 12th grade, and most of the subjects are complete in 11th grade.  Another 11th grade course will be completed this week.  Yippee!


So here are his subjects ~


9th grade:

• English I ~ Grammar, spelling, basic writing skills
• Applied Math ~ Basic math skills
• Physical Education
• Home Economics
• U.S. History I
• Earth Science
• Geography

10th grade:

• English II ~ Literature and Film
• Consumer Math
• Internship year I at the nature center
• U.S. History II
• Art I
• Life Management
• Biology

11th grade:

• English III ~ British and U.S. Literature
• Creative Writing
• World History
• Art II
• Current Affairs
• Theater/Music
• Internship year II

12th grade:

• English IV ~ World Literature
• Work Skills
• World Religion
• Community Service
• U.S. Government
• Chemistry/Physics ~ 1 semester each
• Algebra I

All of these courses are found at our local high school.  The high school also has several different types of diplomas.  Our course work is basically following their "work studies" diploma for those who want to enter the workforce right after high school.  There is only one kind of high school diploma for homeschoolers in North Carolina, but I wanted the transcript to be easily accepted by the city government.


I hope this answered some of your questions.


Blessings, Dawn

U.S. History II

The big teen completed his U.S. History II course for 10th grade.  He used the 10 volume set, A History of US, for his core books.  We both really enjoyed this set.  He completed volumes 8, 9, and most of 10 for this course.  The big teen studied post Civil War to the 1950's.  In addition to these books, he did in-depth studies of the following famous people:  Mark Twain, Jesse James, Norman Rockwell, Theodore Roosevelt, Fredrick Douglas, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Eleanor Roosevelt.  He watched videos about the 1918 flu, Fatal Flood of 1927, Johnstown Flood, Yellow Fever, the Massi Affair, the Great Escape and many WWII documentaries.  He also studied and read The Man in the Arena by Teddy Roosevelt, Night by Elie Wiesel, and In Their Own Words.


He received an A for this course.


Blessings, Dawn

High School Biology

I decided about a year ago to put a summary of my big teen's course work on this blog.  I want all of his hard work to be in more than one place.  This way, if some tragedy happens to our lesson plan book, I will still be able to write his transcript.  I hope to have all of 10th grade recorded in the next few days, so the lesson plan book can go into the fireproof box.  Then I can start getting 11th grade online.  I have a friend who lost everything in a fire a few years ago, including all of her children's homeschool records.  It took forever to rebuild her records.  If you want to see all that I have recorded so far, click on high school transcripts above.


Biology~


The big teen's main textbook was Real Science 4 Kids~Biology, and we used my college textbook as a reference guide when we wanted to go deeper.  We also did 10 lessons on insects from the Handbook of Nature Study.  He also watched numerous shows on PBS about animals, the human body, and water.


The big teen did many nature studies at local lakes, streams, and creeks about the water and little critters in the water.  He also made a ladybug house and grew ladybugs from larvae.  This was fun and excellent for our garden as well.  The big teen really enjoyed our "field trip" to the ocean where he got to identify many shells and study sand crabs.  On that trip, we also got to go to an alligator farm.  He always has been a reptile nut.  Speaking of reptiles, the big teen learned how to care for a large variety of reptiles at his volunteer job at the nature center.  Did you know that snakes in captivity need baths now and again?  Yuck!  Well, the big teen is a professional snake bather.  LOL!


The big teen also studied the human body.  He made a DNA model, worked on a brain kit, completed a human body kit, and learned how to determine the likelihood of passing genetic traits.  He covered all the major systems of the body and learned how they work together.


The big teen studied 72 slides with his microscope.  He also dissected a cow's eye, frog, starfish, and cow's heart.  He scored an A for this course.


Blessings, Dawn

Big Teen's English I Course

This course was for 9th grade.  It was a basic grammar, spelling and writing course for the big teen.  He wrote reports, made lots of lists, wrote letters to friends and family, and played word games such as Boggle and Scrabble.  He also completed four Explode the Code books, Daily Grams book, Apple spelling book for middle school, and cursive writing.  In addition, he watched eight shows on GED grammar and GED writing.  This was by far the most textbook course that he has had in high school, but my goal was to catch him up, so that he would be more successful in his 11th grade Creative Writing course.  I was really pleased to see the improvements he made with this course, and it is aiding him in Creative Writing.

Blessings, Dawn

Big Teen U.S. History I Course

The big teen used books 5 through 7 from the series, A History of U.S., for his U.S. History course in 9th grade.  Since he had studied up through 1800 during his middle school years, he spent this entire year on 1800-1900.  He also read His Promised Land about escaping from slavery and Fever 1793 about a horrible outbreak of yellow fever in Philadelphia.


We were also blessed to be able to take a special trip during his 9th grade year and saw a lot of history.  We went to Atlanta, Georgia, and saw the Civil War Cyclorama.  It was incredible and I highly recommend it, if you get the chance.  We also saw Underground Atlanta, where you can see the real city walls before Atlanta burned to the ground during the Civil War.  In addition, we saw the The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Center.  We then had the opportunity to go to Savannah, Georgia.  We took a wonderful horse-drawn carriage ride and learned a lot about the city and its history.  Next, we to St. Augustine, Florida, and saw the nation's oldest city.  What a lovely city, jam-packed with history.  Lastly, the big teen got to do homeschool day at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C.


Well, that is an overview of his year in U.S. History, and he did a great job.  He received an A for this course.


Blessings, Dawn

The Big Teen's Earth Science Course

This is a record of the big teen's completed course in Earth Science.  He really enjoyed this course, as he really enjoys all science.  We took advantage of our mineral and rock musuem and a great trip to the Natural Bridge in Virginia.  He also used a standard Earth Science textbook, educational shows and many science experiments.  He logged 108 hours and did the following units:

• Solar system ~ 19 hours
• Earth structure ~ 15 hours
• Minerals and rocks ~ 17 hours
• Oceans ~ 5 hours
• Natural disasters ~ 18 hours
• Natural wonders ~ 9 hours
• Climate change and protecting the environment ~ 25 hours

Here is a rundown of most of the experiments:

• Distilled salt water to drinking water
• Made model of the solar system
• Made clouds in a jar
• Created layers of the earth out of ice cream
• Found out how ice affects sediment
• Made an artesian well
• Did several snow experiments
• Created trash table/chart
• Did some flooding experiments
• Did some hard water and soft water tests

Below shows his artesian well, hard/soft water tests, how vinegar eats away calcium egg shell, and his ice cream layer earth.  He received an A for this course.

High School Applied Math

This course was a catch up/review course for my son.  Math is not one of his strong points and his learning difficulties really get in the way.  Since most of this course was a review, I left textbooks behind and tried more alternative hands-on applications.  We used a variety of sources to pull up his math skills.  I found Math-U-See drills online to be very helpful for multiplication and division.  We also used the books I Hate Mathmatics, Skillbooster Workbooks for Middle School, Math Wizzardly for Kids, and A Survey of Mathematics with Applications (my college textbook mostly used for reference).  In addition, we found as many opportunities in real world math as possible, such as measuring to build something and cooking.  Here is a breakdown of the 111 hours that was recorded:

• Statistics ~ 11 hours
• Graphing ~ 6 hours
• Basic Math Skills (multiplication, division, decimals, and fractions) ~ 62 hours
• Measurements ~ 12 hours
• Basic Geometry ~ 20 hours

Here is the hard part, and I would love to hear your ideas on this.  What grade do you give for this work?  The truth is that most of it would not be considered 9th grade work.  However, he did B quality work for what he was asked to do; and if he were in public school, he would be in a Special Ed class, struggling away with the same level math.  I really don't care too much for grades, but I want to cover all my bases, since he does not appear college bound at this time.  In our state, he will get a state diploma from our homeschool state organization, and he will have transcripts that he can show job employers.  However, I will be the one that makes those transcripts, so how do you make them a fair assessment of what he knows?  Your thoughts are welcome.

Blessings, Dawn

High School Physical Education for the Big Teen

I am continuing to record my big teen's high school courses here so that they are documented in more than just a lesson book.   Here is a record of his P.E. course.   Of course, the big teen is active doing things every day that could be seen as P.E., but I recorded 112 hours of activities.  The breakdown is as follows:

• Archery lessons ~ 7 Hours
• Swimming ~ 19 hours
• Long walks, hiking, challenge course ~ 14 hours
• Basketball with others ~ 7 hours
• Rock climbing, skateboarding lessons, sledding ~ 9 hours
• Health (read the book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and read materials on nutrition and spread of disease) ~ 21 hours
• Weight lifting and balance work ~ 35 hours
• Soccer with others ~ 8 hours

He has really gotten into weight lifting.  He has a set in his room and also loves to go work out at the YMCA.  Overall, he did great and showed great progress.  He stuck with reading the I Kissed Dating Goodbye book, even though he said he already understood about courtship (he was raised that way, after all) before starting it and thought it was a waste of time that he could have been doing gym.  He got an A in this course.

Blessings, Dawn

The Big Teen's Geography ...

So I am adding this completed course to my big teen's online transcript.  If you want to see all the courses I have posted so far, click on high school transcripts.  The big teen will have completed 28 different courses by the time he graduates, so this list will grow longer.  For today ~ GEOGRAPHY.

In Geography, the big teen took a 16 week class with other homeschoolers, attended a Geography Club once a month for 1 year and attended a homeschool International Night once a year for three years.  Each weekly class, monthly club, and homeschool International Night presentation required an in-depth oral/written report.  (I have all the written reports in his records.)  Also, the yearly event usually takes him about 15 hours of prep work and a large display/exhibit, and he dresses in the appropriate country's costume.

Countries studied in depth ~

• Chile
• Russia
• Ireland
• Italy  
• Kenya
• Haiti
• Paraguay
• Norway
• Egypt
• England
• Easter Island
• Mongolia
• Antarctica (not really a country)
• Australia
• Japan
• Colombia

He also studied North Carolina and Alaska in depth.  He did 11 written reports and oral reports on almost all the countries, as well.  He played games, such as Borderline Middle East and USA and online geography terms games.  He also studied the Middle East in an attempt to understand what is going on in that part of the world.  He received an A for this course.

Blessings,
Dawn

Art I for the Big Teen ...

This entry is mostly for myself, but I thought it might interest those of you who have a teen or will soon.  I was thinking that having everything the big teen has done just in a lesson plan book that could be lost was not enough.  My son is not college bound at this time, so I am very concerned that his high school transcripts be complete.  For that reason, I will be posting what he has studied and the results of his classes here, just in case we ever lose any of the lesson plan books.  Of course, the books are more complete, but at least these will be a record of sorts.  It will probably take me a few weeks, but they will all be under the "high school transcript" category, if you are interested.



The big teen took Art I in the 10th grade.  He used the Meet the Masters program and several videos.  He went to our local art museum five times and had the opportunity to take a few photography classes.  He also did several crafts, including making jewelry out of forks, making paper, making soap and making gift cards.



He studied:

• Winslow Homer
• Leonardo da Vinci
• Goya
• Mondrian ~ did art project
• Mary Cassatt
• Georgia O'Keeffe ~ did art project
• Norman Rockwell
• Remington ~ did art project
• Edgar Degas ~ did art project
• Henri Matisse ~ did art project
• Frida Kahlo ~ did art project
• Andrew Wyeth ~ did art project
• Claude Monet
• Jackson Pollock ~ did art project
• Vincent van Gogh
• Rembrandt ~ did art project
• Toulouse-Lautrec ~ did art project

He received an A for this course, because he put his best effort into it and learned a great deal.  He completed all the course work and was able to answer all questions about the artists and compare and contrast them.

Is it best to homeschool through high school?

A good friend asked me this recently.  I have heard these questions before but was surprised hearing it from this person who plans on homeschooling her own children someday.  My answer was a resounding "yes" for all the reasons you all already know.  She was specifically worried about how she would teach the harder subjects.  I explained about co-op classes and all the help that is out there these days.  This conversation got me thinking about how passionate I feel about homeschooling.  I guess my favorite thing about homeschooling high school besides the moral aspects, is that my big teen is able to explore his interests and take classes that would not be offered to him in high school.  For one thing, my dear son would be in special ed classes for severely learning disabled students.  He would not be offered the opportunity to learn half of what I have offered him.  They would not have faith, time or interest in fostering and adapting things so that he could learn them.  Take for example my son's 10th grade Lit and Film course.  Like most teens, he loves films, but instead of watching twaddle, I found a course that studied films from great literature.  He loved it so much that when it was completed, I searched out more films at this site. 


Here is the list of movies he/we watched:

• Gone with the Wind
• David Copperfield
• Silk Stockings- Sherlock Holmes
• Pollyanna
• The Thief Lord
• Under the Greenwood Tree - Harding
• Emma
• Dracula
• The Philadelphia Story
• Maltese Falcon
• 12 Angry Men
• Shane
• Rear Window
• Friendly Persuasion
• Great Expectations
• The Great Gatsby
• A Raisin in The Sun
• Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
• The Grapes of Wrath
• Fox Fire
• The Quiet Man
• Pride and Prejudice
• Bleak House
• Arsenic and Old Lace
• Henry the V
• The Journey of August King
• A Man for All Seasons
• The Miracle Worker
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• The Outsiders
• Chariots of Fire
• Miss Potter
• Searching for Bobby Fischer
• Wind and the Willows
• The Glass Menagerie
• Animal Farm
• Silas Marner
• The Hiding Place
• Passage to India
• Earogon

WOW! Thanks for hanging in there for that long list.  Can anyone tell me a public or private school student that has seen all those classic movies in school?  I have a bachelor's degree in Sociology and my ds has seen more classics than I ever saw growing up and read more books than I read in high school.

One funny -  My son will be upset if I do not share this.  When it was time to order Animal Farm, I was in a rush and somehow ordered Animal House.  I never even noticed my mistake even after it arrived.  I set my ds and dh up to watch it and wandered off to have some time to myself.  My dh came to me a few minutes later and asked why we were watching this movie.  He asked if this was for sex ed.  If so, he did not think it went at all with our courtship teachings.  LOL!  I was like, "What are you talking about?  The movie is supposed to be about post-revolutionary times in Russia."  OOOPS!  We all had a good laugh and life goes on.


Blessings,
Dawn

Final Exam in Home Economics

Well, the big teen had a few hours left over from last year to complete his Home Ec course, so I told him he would be taking the final while his grandparents were visiting.  His exam was to clean a room from top to bottom; sew a button on his sister's dress; and plan, shop, make, and serve a 3 course formal meal on china to his parents and grandparents.  I teased him that he was walking into the exam with an A, but if he broke my china it was an automatic F.  Of course, I was only teasing, and I am happy to report he didn't break any!  He made fruit salad as the appetizer, pork chops, corn, and potatoes as the main course with brownies for dessert.  It was so good!!!


Yes, he is holding the knife that way just to annoy me!  He doesn't like having his picture taken while he is working.











He also sewed a button on his sister's dress.


He also really made the kitchen sparkle, but I forgot to take a picture and now it is messed up again.  LOL!  He got an A for the final and course!