First Semester 2020-2021 Recap
"Planning from behind" is one of the golden nuggets of homeschooling that I learned from Julie Bogart's book The Brave Learner. The concept is that you look at all the amazing things you are able to do as a homeschooler and fit the learning experiences into your school records! I love this concept and my mama heart beats full when I look at what we have been able to do in the past few months of the homeschool year.
It's time for me to start planning for the 2nd semester (finish term 2 and 3) but I always like to reflect on what we did during August-December. I can see holes that I want to fill in the new year and check off boxes of what we were able to cover!
Back when Christian was just 1st and 2nd grade I was updating my blog every 12 weeks. Realistically, I think if I can get a semester recap done twice a year I'm satisfied! Read on if you have the time for my ramblings! I'll see if I can keep subjects organized for easy scrolling! If you want to see how I planned out our year, read the 2020-2021 planning post!
The Knowledge of God
Daily Bible reading is the goal for our subject but I am not always consistent in this endeavor. Christian and Eva Mae are able to have their personal Bible reading time but I can see that one of my goals for the new year needs to be consistent family reading. We've worked our way through the books of Judges and Ruth in the first semester but neglected a lot of our New Testament reading. We have been reading through and memorizing Romans 12 and Psalm 8. I love recapping our readings with The Bible Project videos!
In addition to our Bible recitation/memorization we also have been listening and discussing John Bunyan's Holy War. This has been such a special time with my kids at the table. We listened to about 5-10 minutes each sitting and finished the entire story in December. We used drawing narrations, acting out narrations, Lego narrations, and sculpting narrations while discussing spiritual warfare. I encourage all Christians to seek out the original text or enjoy a retelling for Children! I read the original in my own personal devotion time and appreciated the Bible commentary published along with the book. You can read the original online here.
Catechism has been on my heart for this year so I started with the online New City Catechism and corresponding songs. I decided to get the small paperback books for us all to have in our hands and help with the memorization. I'm really happy with this combination and look forward to continuing until we finish all the books! It may be a few years down the road but I love how solid this program is!
We've also enjoyed several chapters of Missionary Stories with the Millers and Peril and Peace. We've had some hard discussions about Christian persecution through these stories. My 11 year old is especially sensitive to the topic and has broken down in tears several times. If you have advice on how best to proceed or what has helped you, please message me! I've read Trials and Triumph and these two books are so much better in my opinion. Missionary Stories with the Millers is a little more upbeat and has wonderful redemption stories and heroic acts that outshine martyrdom. Peril and Peace is important to understand church history and written very well but the truth is sometimes hard to hear. I know without a shadow of doubt that these stories are important to know. It's just really hard for our hearts sometimes.
Knowledge of Man
We've had a great time in our historical timeline of 1800-1900 American history! Moving from the Mexican-American War, Oregon Trail, Gold Rush, Transcontinental Railroad, and currently in the Civil War has been an action packed adventure! I love all the books we're reading! I won't clutter the post with all of them since I posted them in our planning page, but I will share some fun pictures!
Since we were spending a lot of time on the Gold Rush, we participated in the Spring Hill History Fair and shared our knowledge of panning for gold! We also had an amazing book party with friends after reading By the Great Horn Spoon!
Hopefully you can read about it in the February bundle from W+F! I'll be sure to share on my FB and IG when it's out!
We also loved taking a tour of Rippavilla and Carter House this year. The Civil War is a huge part of the local history and it's really interesting to realize we are walking where the soldiers walked.
Geography has been a lot of fun this year as we've memorized the map of the states. We're still working on all the capitals but both Christian and Eva Mae have named and labeled every state on the map without help! We also received a postcard from every state and will treasure the collection for years to come! We use "Trick Geography" for our mapwork. I love how it uses pictures and "tricks" to help remember the shape and location of each state. We'll be using Trick Geography for European countries next semester.
Richard Haliburton's Book of Marvels has become one of my favorite geography books this semester! It always seemed like an enigma because people in my homeschool groups always talked about how hard it was to find a copy of the book. I bought mine on ebay or thriftbooks for about $30 and it's well worth the price for the wonderful way it's written, but it is horribly out of date! LOL! Maybe one day there will be a perfect replacement for these stories. For example, the whole chapter of the Bay Bridge was wonderful and then I realized that structure was completely torn down in 2018! We still loved reading and learning about it though! I have a feeling that many of the chapters will be that way but we have the benefit of modern technology to learn more about these marvels through YouTube videos!
Stories about children in other countries has also made up part of our geography subject. We've been reading through "Shepherd Boy of Australia" this semester but also just finished 3 amazing short books during the month of December! "Christmas in Austria" "Christmas in Sweden" and "Christmas in Italy" made for an amazing Christmas school this month! We watched some Rick Steve's videos, made authentic food from each of the countries, and enjoyed learning more about other cultures through the books! You can bookmark the links for next year here!
Another special subject that has been a lot of fun during this semester has been our Latin and Plutarch class for boys! I've been using various resources from Legonium, Logos Press, Teachers Pay Teachers, and Charlotte Mason Plenary to make up the lesson plans for each week! The boys have been learning so much and I love watching them interact and discuss! We will start with our 2nd semester class in a couple months!
As part of our literature studies, we've enjoyed taking part in a monthly "book club" for our Wild + Free group! The moms have done an amazing job organizing parties to celebrate after the reading of a book - some of the literature is light, some heavy! We loved Robin Hood, By the Great Horn Spoon, and Swallows and Amazons this year! I'm looking forward to more fun books this semester!
We've also met with friends to have "Poetry Tea Time" together and that has been so rewarding! The kids really love picking out their poetry to share and sipping out of fancy cups!
Some easy fiction that we've read and loved are the books that my husband has published! The Traveler's League and Hacker Jack series are not only written by Nick, but created by Christian and Eva Mae! I talk a little about the history of these books in a book party post here. What's been exciting and creative for them this school year is the development of their YouTube channel! I'll share two of the videos here!
This is a KidVenture episode with Christian and Eva Mae talking about things they love! These videos are like a short variety show for kids to enjoy!
This is a "Writing Tips for Kids" episode that Nick is creating. It will be a 10 part video series to encourage creative writing for your children! I'm so proud!
Composer Study also falls under our "Knowledge of Man" and we had a blast meeting with friends after Term 2 to celebrate Haydn! We used lessons from Composer Study Companion to enrich our music history studies! Reading the biography by Thomas Tapper and listening to specific pieces during the 12 weeks was probably more fun for me than the kids, but I know they enjoyed the lessons too!
Scroll through to see some more pictures of our party!
Some more music in the first semester included learning the ukulele, recorder, and folk dancing! I had an amazing group of kids meet for 6 weeks to test out a method book I will be releasing soon. It's a companion to the Solfa Sofa program, but using the recorder along with singing! I'm looking forward to our second semester of study!
Art was also made richer by having others join us! We had 3 different art classes this semester. Tuesday mornings continued the art class we've had for the past 3 years, Tuesday afternoons were only for older students, and Wednesday mornings were for K-2 grade students! We learned about famous works of art and artists and learned about the elements of art through painting, drawing, and sculpting! I love having Christian and Eva Mae's work decorate the walls of our school room!
In my planning post I think I was ambitious with plans on incorporating regular handicrafts and our Wild Explorers assignments! I will focus on the positive and say how much I love our community to check off these boxes with friends! We meet once a month with our Wild Explorer group for a "show and share." These are great meetings where we can complete an assignment together and also share what we do at home! In the first semester we completed assignments for packing a backpack, making a hiking stick, learning something new from a professional (nurse), tried different ethnic foods, made cards for the elderly, and cleaned up a natural area! Our family is also delivering for Meals on Wheels once a month and it has been wonderful to see Christian and Eva Mae serve others.
For handicrafts, my friends Valinda and Joanna put together a Handicraft Fair! Christian and Eva Mae made candles to sell and we supported all our other friends by buying ornaments, jewelry, soap, toys, and more! It was so much fun!
The day we made our candles was also one of our Chinese classes that I had completely forgotten about! Sweet Meili, our teacher, was totally fine to improvise and teach in the living room while I used the kitchen and dining room to finish up the candle making! LOL! I have loved having a tutor for foreign language. Meili comes once a week and has created little quizzes and tests for the kids while teaching them vocabulary and how to write and recognize Chinese characters.
Knowledge of the Universe
Nature is probably my favorite subject and I'm so glad to be recapping all the fun topics we've covered this semester! A funny side story - I had my wisdom teeth out last month and while resting, both the kids brought be perler bead flowers that they had made! Christian said "Mom, I know how much you love nature so I made this flower for you!" You better believe it's going in my mommy memory box! Moments like that are gifts to be treasured!
We have continued to enjoy our monthly Nature Adventure lessons! This semester we have learned about crayfish, watersheds, grass, tree nuts, and evergreens! All our lessons and pictures are on the nature section of Kind + Cultivated! I'm looking forward to next semester where we will be beginning our study of herbs through the resources of Herb Fairies!
We've had a few fun field trips this semester too! We learned about reptiles at Henry Horton State Park with the SHAPE group and also participated in a fall leaf science class at the park with our SHAPE friends!
We did some scouting lessons with compasses at the Wilson Family Farm and the orienteering course at Montgomery Bell!
Pickwick Landing is one of our favorite state parks and the rangers led us on a fun hike to learn more about Pickwick Lake and the Tennessee River! We also went to the Tennessee River Museum which is one of my favorite small Tennessee museums! (Similar to the Lewis County museum in size!)
Earlier this semester we had a great time in Lewis County hiking around Camp Wonder Wander and also going horse back riding! I created a travel post on the blog here to read more about the fun adventures you can have in the Hohenwald area!
Survival is a subject that I want to add in to our school eventually. My friend Greg Bearden is the perfect guy to lead these classes! We had one class about backpacking and cooking food in the wild and he gave us some amazing survival tips! I'm hoping maybe we can plan a backpacking/camping trip in the next several years to use these skills!
I love that our "knowledge of the universe" subject is mainly all hands on and experience based, but we also have amazing books to read during school time! Many times we prepare before a Nature Adventure and I'll read a story from our Child's World volume Plants and Animals or World and its Wonders. For example, this month I read the chapter on evergreens and it went in depth of how you tell the difference between a pine, fir, spruce, and cedar. I love these old books! I wrote about them a couple years ago and we still use them for school readings.
Another book that we've fallen in love with this year is "All About Famous Inventors." This semester we have studied Roger Bacon, Alfred Nobel, Gutenberg, James Watt, Robert Fulton, George Stephenson, and Ericsson. It's taken us in history to the development of steam engines and we'll be learning about more famous inventors and scientists next semester. It's been fascinating to look up YouTube videos after we read. For example, we watched nitroglycerine being tested and also found an old movie about the life of Robert Fulton!
The How and Why Wonder series is also part of our science study and we're still making our way through the book about space, solar systems, stars and constellations, etc. We're near the end so after we finish I plan to read the magnet book and the machine book.
I am so so so so blessed to have the opportunity to home educate my children! I didn't talk about my own "professional development" during this semester but have learned so much as our mom book study continues to read Volume 4 and In Vital Harmon. I also love just meeting for encouragement at lunch dates or playdates! We loved the virtual Wild + Free conference this year and I firmly believe that surrounding yourself with a community of like minded friends is a recipe for success in home schooling! We're always wanting to meet and love on new friends! You can join our W+F group here!
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