June 8, 2009
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2,500 Words from Finished
Saturday night was Hunter’s graduation ceremony. There were eight homeschoolers who chose to participate. We moms worked together to do the program, food, decorations, slide show, etc., and I think the ceremony went extremely well.
The Homeschool Graduating Class of 2009
Four generations!
It was the first sunny day that we had in almost two weeks. Hunter invited a bunch of his friends over to play Ultimate Frisbee for the afternoon.
Yes, MJ has a hatchet and a file. Of course.
Then, the Curwensville crowd arrived: Grammy Peep, PapaJohn, Grammy Norris, and Kay Kay. My mom made almost all the food and even brought iced tea. (And I have leftover pasta salad in the fridge for my lunch today which is making me extremely happy.) Hunter just ate his tassel.
We ate meatball sandwiches, pasta salad, beans, fruit, and angel food cake with fruit toppings and didn’t even get to cut into the graduation cake.
The cake must have felt the rejection, because anyone who got within four feet of it came away with some blue icing smeared somewhere on his person. “That wretched blue icing!”
(We did finally cut the cake yesterday. It was delicious. And someone thought Hunter needed to be a pirate. Aaaarrrrggghh.)
A number of people have asked me, “How does it feel to have your first one graduated?” The thing is, Hunter isn’t actually graduated yet. He has finals at the high school, a 2,500 word research paper on Walt Whitman to write, and about 10 more books to read (his homeschool diploma program requires 25 books a year to be read). In other words, that boy has a lot of work to do in the next week and a half! So, ask me again on June 18th, which is the day of their evaluations. Or, better yet, ask me July 1st once I have all the portfolios turned into the school district.
I have a guess how I will feel–happy that I only have to do four portfolios next year!
Comments (14)
Congrats to Hunter. Now…..I need to google the name Walt Whitman…sounds familiar but can’t put my finger on who it is. Also, I’m SO GLAD that I don’t live in one of the “portfolio states”. Ug.
Nice pics….and the family resemblence in the generation pic is STRONG.
Wow, quite an achievement there mom.
May I ask what you are using for Hunters high school diploma program?
@wherever_we_go -
PHAA–Pennsylvania Homeschoolers Accreditation Agency
@TeacherPerson -
And have they come up with a course of study?
I am currently trying to work out what track to go down with Master 15. He is doing A.C.E currently. Here in the UK he should be doing GCSE and in Australia next year he should be sitting his year 10 certificate.
Decisions decisions!
@wherever_we_go -
No, PHAA simply grants diplomas. PA is one of two states in the USA where you can get a state-recognized diploma as a homeschooler if you go through and accreditation agency. They set certain standards (number of semesters of class types, speech, 2,500 word paper, etc.), but they do not have any sort of curriculum, nor do they do any grading, etc. It’s a Pennsylvania thing.
You look wonderful in your summer dress with the little red jacket. Madeline, again. I am going to get you a hat with a red bow on it some day. Your son does have a lot of work left to do. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. (I think you will be relieved when it’s all over.)
Graduations are always exciting! My youngest sister just graduated from high school a couple weeks ago.
You did a fantastic job in helping to organize the graduation event! And I must say that the graduation cake tastes fabulous. We have eaten all but the top of Hunter’s head, so we no longer have to see him eyeball-less. Love!
Well, even though you aren’t 100% done, congrats to you both. Believe me, I know what it takes to graduate one of these kids! I’m sure you have much over which to appropriately gloat!
Looks like a great graduation ceremony! I’m sure it will be official soon! Although that boy better get reading fast! LOL
So, given your qualifiers, is this a tentative “Congratulations” to Hunter? Walt Whitman. Yuk. Did they assign it or did you, and if you did, why Walt Whitman? I hope he is able to finish the work quickly. Twenty five books would take me fifty weeks to read.
Love the photo of the ultimate frisbee team. Quintus is into ultimate frisbee. All those long bare legs, it reminds me of something, -Chariots of Fire?
It just occurred to me perhaps you love Walt Whitman and might be offended by my yukking a 2500 word paper on that topic. Sorry, I allow others to have different tastes. We were force fed Walt Whitman in some class I took and I have had a lasting dislike of Walt Whitman ever since.
@mamaglop -
No, I’m not a huge fan of Whitman. I was just that Hunter read Leaves of Grass this year, and I wanted him to do a report on a poet. Since he had NO ideas, I assigned Whitman. He is not happy, especially the more he reads about WW’s life.
Congratulations! Is there a story behind the varied colors of the graduation robes?