My School For Grade Twelve

    I really do not like reading blog posts with a lot of reading, but I wanted to do a post about my school. So for those of you who care to read, read on! I just published a post about my school schedule for every day this winter, but in this post I want to expound more about what I am doing for grade twelve now, and also things that I have done in the past. 
    First of all, I love school. Ever since I can remember I have loved listening to books that my parents read, and from as young as I could, I have been writing letters with my cousin or reading books to myself.    
     I started math when I was ten (grade five) and at first I liked it well enough, but when I got to pre-algebra (age thirteen), I started struggling and got quite bogged down. After about a year of trying to plod through that one math book, my parents suggested that I go back and start on an earlier level. I did Saxon Math from grades five to eight. After I hit the wall, I went back to grade seven with Life of Fred, and have been doing that ever since. I still don't enjoy math that much but I am managing, even though I am several grades behind. 
   As for writing, as I said, I have written letters with my cousin and many other friends since I was around six. Right now I have three pen pals, but over all, I have had nineteen people who I have written letters to - not necessarily with! When I was eleven I started a journal, and I have written in it steadily since then; I am on my sixth notebook now. Other than that, I have written two or three short stories, a made-up pioneer town, an English household, or other ideas for stories, but not many that I have really written out in full. I have never had to write any essays or much assigned writing, which I am quite thankful for! When I learned to write, my mom wanted me to learn cursive, but I refused! Finally, this last year I re-taught myself cursive, and I love it!  
     I could read when I was eight, but I did not start reading chapter books until I was ten. I have read 162 separate books, and in all I have read 208 books. And not a single one was assigned! 
     Basically as soon as I could, I played piano. For the first ten years of my life, I just taught my self, or my mom or someone else taught me basic chords to play along to the tunes I could play by ear. But when I was eleven, my mom met a young homeschool graduate who was a piano teacher. She taught me for five years, but then got married and moved away. I did not progress as much as I would have liked. This year I am playing piano once a week, but I am not working very hard on teaching myself anything new - I am just reviewing the songs that I already know. 
     When I was around eight or nine, my dad bought a violin and we all went to a homeschool friend of ours to learn violin. After that we had a more professional teacher for nearly four years. From the beginning I never enjoyed it, but I played it for quite a while (like six years) with my sisters, that I learnt it well enough and got okay at it. But two or three years ago we stopped taking lessons and I have scarcely picked up a violin since! 
     I started playing guitar when I was twelve. My dad taught me the basics for a few months - then I did not play for a year or two. This winter I decided to re-teach myself, and I will see how far I can get! 
     My younger sister got a ukulele for her birthday a few years ago and since then I have taught myself here and there, but like I said about guitar, I am playing it regularly now. I just do not want to get so far in my ukulele skills! 
     When I was eleven I decided that I wanted to learn a language. I picked German because of my Mennonite background. I got Rosetta Stone for my twelfth birthday and I finished the program when I was fifteen and a half. For the year after that, I sort of just did my own studying - using Google Translate, copying out of book, reading out loud to myself, etc., but coming into this last fall I realized I needed to get some one-on-one in-person speaking practice. I contacted two families that we know who speak German and asked them if I could come over every month to have some German classes. But... I did not have my driver's license, so that was useless. Luckily, one of those families invited me to an online local German class that ran every Saturday morning. It just so happened that I was able to attend the very first class! I do believe God was directing me! I have been attending those classes this whole school year, and I am learning and progressing so much! In future, I hope to travel to Germany and perhaps God has something in store for all that I have been learning. 
     My real studies in English started last spring when I read a book entitled English Handbook - A Reference for English Grammar and Composition, published by Christian Light Education. After that I saw English as a school subject, and I wanted to find out more about when words came into English, and from what origin. Right now I am reading a book called Why You Say It. It is about 700 and some words and phrases in English and the stories of their origin. It is really interesting! Next I am going to read a book called The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories. I know it might sound uninteresting to some, but I love history (which is my favourite subject) and so even history about our language I find fascinating (especially since I am learning German too, so the languages are connected).
     I have done my own geographical studies, like trying to memorize all the countries in the world, and writing down all the countries that belong to all the continents, but really I have not focused on geography that much. I like it though. 
     For science, in the evenings my dad would get us to do an experiment sometimes, but other than that I did not do formal science studies until I was in grade eleven. I read a text book for grade ten called Exploring Creation with Biology, and then for grade twelve I read Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy (I finished it already). I am glad that I read the first one, covering all biology, but I did not enjoy it so much as I did the one on human anatomy. It was so cool! I have never really enjoyed science as a subject, but I enjoyed that book.  
     Ever since I can remember doing school, we have had a time in the morning when we all gather up (whether we are in school or not - the graduates can decide to join but the preschoolers are required to attend) and my mom reads aloud to us from a variety of books. We have always called it Group School. Over the years, we have heard these kinds of things (or read aloud ourselves): Shakespeare, history, novels, biographies, English or logic type books, the Bible, etc. We do math, science and other literature on our own time, but most of the rest of our "bookish education" is from this time when mom reads to us altogether and we can talk about everything we are reading. It is a great time to get different quiet projects done too: sewing, drawing, playing with Lego - ha! - the latter is not so quiet.... 
    History is my favourite subject, and the reason for that mostly stemmed from the fact that I did not have to make any effort in order to consume it because my mom always just read it aloud to us, and we never had to do any quizzes. When mom finished reading the curriculum (The Mystery of History by Linda Lacour Hobar) in Group School, I picked it up and read the last 2000 years to myself this last year. I just love learning about the past - what people did "back then". My favourite time period is broadly the late 1700s-early 1900s, but more specifically the late 1800s. 
     This isn't really school, but this is what my Bible studies have been like over the past few years: I am reading through the Bible in chronological order, and this year I am reading it twice through. I am also going through the New Testament right now and reviewing the verses I have memorized, over and over and over again.
     Now for the things I am learning or have learnt outside of book learning: Sewing (you may see three posts showing what I have sewn in the last three years here on my blog); cooking - I learned to cook when I was eight, and I have loved it ever since! I am not much of a baker, though, save for the fact that I taught myself to bake bread. General house cleaning and taking care of kids, gardening, and other household or farm work.
 
     It is crazy to think that I am in grade twelve already. This is the end! It is mostly because I am only sixteen. I might possibly do some "grade thirteen" subjects next fall, if I have the time. I will miss being a school girl, but I know that I will enjoy the freedom of being graduated. 
     What is your favourite thing in school?