December 2015
It's hard to believe it's Christmas time already. The Eldest continues to write, and has completed the sequel to her first novel, The Antediluvians. Her new novel is currently in the second round of editing, and she is finalizing her illustrations. She has also been teaching herself computer animation for the past year, and is also training with us in sound design and engineering. She is currently making an animated movie trailer for The Antediluvian series, which will be released prior to the launch of her second novel. She will graduate at the end of the current school year, and continue on in her studies to pursue a career in the entertainment industry in movie storyboarding and animation. She will also continue to write, and hopes to one day make full-length movies based upon her novels, and learn to play the violin.

The youngest is excelling in academics, and has completed already in this school semester a full year of history and science, so we are continuing on to the next grade level in those subjects with him. He has also become a very good artist in his own right, with a particular flare for drawing buildings and things in 2-D and 3-D perspective. This year we would like to start him on an instrument. His choice is drums and percussion.

August 2014
We are now implementing a year-round calendar with our studies. It spreads out our curriculum more smoothly, and also allows for greater flexibility in travel, extra-curricular programs, and work training. In biggger news, The Eldest is now a published author and illustrator! In January, she released her sci-fi novel, The Antediluvians, to the world.

Here is a synopsis:
"An ultimate weapon meant to end wars was stolen from a high-security research center, leaving scientists and forensics baffled. Less than 24 hours later in a prehistoric valley, tyranny rises from the ashes. . . Will persecution and genocide lead to mass craving of revenge and extinction, or will enough Squama bridge the gap with honor and charity so Freedom can soar?"

Her 500+ page illustrated novel can be found at all online book retailers, and at her publisher, South Main Media. It is available digitally via Nook, Kindle, and eBook, and also via paperback.

December 2013
As you can probably see, a year has transpired already. It has been very busy at South Main Academy. The Eldest is hard at work on her high school studies, and extra activities. She is involved in the Drama Team, and won first place in the area Art Festival in the categories of photography and mixed-media painting. She also won the People's Choice award for her mixed-media painting. Well done!

December 2012
Merry Christmas! We are enjoying a holiday season of rigorous studies, coupled with a low-stress environment. Both children are doing quite well, and we're learning how to span both grades with little issue. The Eldest has been a great help with the youngest. The Eldest also started taking horse riding lessons this summer.

September 2011
It is early in the school year, and both children are doing very well. The youngest has begun formal studies, and he's shown great interest in the sciences, math concepts, and also structure/physics. The Eldest is ideating a new book that she has plans on writing. Her illustration skills are improving rapidly.

March 2010
This year I (Mom) am happy to report that we have done very well the new the semester of school! This year has been especially challenging due to increased work loads academically for the Eldest, and also our family and ministry life have gotten very busy. Our youngest is becoming more and more interested in being a part of the school day more formally.

October 2009
This year I (Mom) am happy to report that we have survived the first month and a half of school! I hope to have many praise reports to list in the coming months. And can we say "repeat"? The Eldest entered the graphic art contest for the North Carolina State Fair. This year she had to move up to the older age category, competing against other artists up through seniors in high school. To our delight and hers, she took 2nd place! We are so proud of her!

October 2008
The Eldest entered the graphic art contest in the open category (for homeschoolers) for the 2008 North Carolina State Fair. She took *** FIRST PRIZE *** and won her largest winning amount to date - $100.00! Her graphic will also be displayed at the fair throughout it's run (October 16-28). And yes, she did it all by herself, in Adobe Illustrator. We are so proud of her well deserved achievement!

July 2008
Another year of testing has been completed. We are happy to say that our Eldest performed incredibly well, despite a more challenging battery of tests this year to mark the end of her 4th grade year. Both pre-algeba and social studies were new concepts for her. Still placing almost 5 grades ahead of her own, she scored near perfect marks in science, vocabulary, language mechanics, and social studies. She is in the top 7% of students nationwide, overall.

June 2007
After so much change and flexibility we've all had to endure, our Eldest pulled out another brilliant set of scores on her end of year testing. She placed in the 99th percentile again, with a "grade equivalent to 9.3", as measured against the national standard. Her strongest subject areas are word analysis, vocabulary, comprehension, spelling, language mechanics and expression, mathematics computation, and science.

June 2006
The results are back. I've wiped the sweat off my brow, for the Eldest did terrific on her end-of-year achievement tests. We opted for an extended battery of social studies, science, math concepts, math computation, language expression, language mechanics, spelling, comprehension, vocabulary, and word analysis. She scored in the 99% percentile nationally! She also did exceptionally well on her art and music finals. Way to go!

January 2006 - Beginning the 2nd Semester
It's hard to believe that 2006 is here! We've had a great first semester of school and finally found our "groove" with scheduling work and studies. Our Eldest finished up 3 of her Language Arts books already. We were not expecting to be done with them until the end of the year. So now we are working through a 3rd grade English book and doing additional subjects, such as typing and beginning computer graphic design.

We had purchased the "recommended" supplemental workbooks for cursive handwriting, Phonics, and other readers, but we discovered early on that she did not need instruction in cursive. She self-skipped learning to write each letter in cursive separately (and might I add, it DID seem rather tedious) and jumped right into doing her work completely in cursive. She read her readers within the first several days of the school year so we increased our library visits and the number of books she could check out. Her newest interest is the Little House On The Prairie series and most anything involving a mystery to be solved.

December 2005
It's hard to imagine that the end of the year is fast approaching. In the last 3 months, our Eldest has breezed through her curriculum and is well ahead of the "traditional" academic calendar. In fact, we have moved on to 3rd through 6th grade work in several of her subjects at her request. At 7. 5 years old, she is now reading at an upper middle school comprehension level at the rate of 1 new book (between 175-250 pages) every 1 to 2 days!

November 2005
Congratulations to our Eldest! The Wake County Public Libraries held a bookmark design contest for the East Region within Wake County. Her design of a dragon with the caption "Reading is Believing" was one of the winners! As a reward, our local library branch held a reception in honor of all the winners, and each winner received 50 of their professionally output bookmarks to keep and another 50 were distributed to the public throughout the East Region.