We FINISHED!!! It was not very fun at the end, since it was a tough year for all things in the Bond house. Tal did terrific. We had fifty significant books on the reading list, and we tackled all the tough things in math, etc. One thing we did do well was science. We had so many living things in our house! Butterflies, tadpoles (some grew legs, some had scarier endings), more rounds of sea monkeys, we have ladybugs now...who can remember what else. We have a picture here of Bendy, who met a sad ending (see her RIP post on Tal's blog). That was another accomplishment--he got the hang of blogging, and taught us all about Widgets and fun ways to make writing um, interesting. Congrats, Tal!

Homeschoolers at the Olympics

We get so many questions about being homeschoolers. The kids training for the Olympics are nearly all home-schooled. The About.com homeschooling writer is interviewing some of them about their experience, and I love it.

There are over two million homeschooled kids in the United States right now. We chose to do it so we could have flexibility in our family, one-on-one teaching for each child, and keep their innocence as long as we can. Everyone has different reasons, of course, and these athletes are no different. Here is one really interesting article.

Home school is mostly fun, despite Tal's protests. We've modified the curriculum a bit and he is flying through 3rd grade...we have one more unit to go and we're finished with the curriculum already.

Some of our other Activities:

• Check out Tal's Sea Monkey project here.
• Tennis Clinic at Cheval
• Soccer at Idlewild.
• Swim lessons!
• Music and Missions at Idlewild Baptist Church www.idlewild.org
• Spanish Immersion (although we're on hiatus) at Language Playhouse www.languageplayhouse.com
• Curriculum: Alpha Omega Publications www.aop.com
• Reading club and HS group activities at Idlewild.
• Tal's blog and reading list are at www.talbondjournal.blogspot.com