Progress Report for a Nine-Year-Old

READING/WRITING/LITERATURE

• monthly reading of Cricket magazine

• completed several stories, poems, and letters

• More than two dozen books read this year, including C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, James Thurber's The 13 Clocks, Mary Norton'sBedknob and Broomstick, Eva Ibbotson's Secret of Platform 13 and Island of the Aunts, Lynn Reid Banks' Indian in the Cupboard series, Jean Craighead George's My Side of the Mountain, J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan

MATHEMATICS

• Completed Saxon Math 65 textbook, various supplemental workbooks

SOCIAL STUDIES/ HISTORY

• Field trips taken: Minuteman Park Battle Road, Royall House program on slave quarters/archeology exhibition, "Cry Innocent" depiction of Salem witch trial, "House With No Walls" dramatic presentation on George Washington's Philadelphia slaves, "The Crucible" dramatic presentation on Salem witch trials, Jackson Homestead Civil War program.

• Readings: historical novels and segments of Howard Zinn's Young People's History of the United States

• Discussions of the presidential election process, candidates and their views, party system.

• member of Girl Scout troop

SCIENCE

• Topics covered include human body (focus on the eye), weather/climate/global warming, earth sciences through gardening, animals and other topics through monthly reading of Ranger Rick magazine

THE ARTS

• art instruction with professional teacher

• violin and chamber music studies with private teacher

• more than half a dozen performances with Revels Repertory Company

• several completed knitted items

• member of Mulberry Morris dance team

• acting instruction including theater/improvisation games

• attendance at plays including "Macbeth," "The Misanthrope," "Peter Pan," "The Tempest," "Cyrano," "The Importance of Being Earnest," "King John"

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

• regular bicycling and walking

• soccer instruction