Atkins Home School Promotion

When the girls have completed a year of school we have some fun home school traditions to celebrate.  Each year it seems we add a new tradition.  As the girls have gotten older they have taken more interest in how we celebrate which has also been fun!

The girls with the certificates and the graduation hats they made.

 The girls look forward to a certificate of completion.  You can find these free on the internet to print off.  I usually roll these up and tie with wrapping paper ribbon to make them seem a bit fancy.  Next year I may be a bit more ambitious and design a special certificate with all the info printed on it and a beginning of the school year picture and end of school year picture on it. We don't usually keep it, but if you were going to keep it in a scrapbook, it would be even more memorable with the photos on it.  I have also thought about making up special teacher or principal awards but we have gone that far either! LOL 


We also have a special dinner to celebrate.  This year we grilled steaks here at home.  Some years we have gone out to a restaurant. This year I picked up a few of the Hawiaan themed picnic items at the dollar tree to decorate and make it special! Hannah enjoyed decorating the dining room for us!  At dinner we often talk about how the year went.  Sometimes we ask the girls to share what they enjoyed the most.  This year we did this talk after dinner during the "ceremony time" and I videotaped it.  We enjoyed listening to what the girls enjoyed learning or what they were looking forward to in the future.  The girls asked to watch it the very next day!

Lydia:  Most enjoyed learning to read the Bob Books and loved doing math pages.

Mary: Loved learning about the explorers and all the trials they suffered though it was gross that they had to eat biscuits with worms, or the rats, or their own shoes and rope.

The girls with both teachers! :)

Sarah:  Her favorite book was The Golden Goblet.  She didn't like studying the Romans because so many were greedy or mean and killed the good people.

Hannah:  Her favorite book was an historical fiction diary of a young Cleopatra.  She looks forward to only having one more year of mandatory cursive handwriting! (This policy is now under principal review and cursive may be extended for the remainder of home education.  This will be a good opportunity to let Hannah practice some persuasive speech skills! LOL)

 This year we also added a piano recital to the program.  The girls have a very poor teacher (me) but we are plugging along and they are beginning to read music and enjoyed playing the songs!  (Lydia made up her own composition!)  I think next year we will also add a memorized poem to the recital.  The older girls were given the report card for the last term.  This was the first year we did report cards.  Mary has requested report cards for the coming year.  I haven't decided if I am going to give Lydia some form of a progress report.

We enjoyed making special memories of this accomplishment with our girls!  I pray they treasure these years.  I know I am!

We are only on summer break for a couple of weeks.  We are going to do summer school so that this fall when public school begins I can substitute and the girls can have a longer break then.  They will enjoy the time off during the pleasant weather!  That is one of the nice things about home school - we can be very flexible with our schedule!

So how do you celebrate the end of a school year with your children?

With All My Heart~