Recap of 2020-2021

 

How did I get so blessed to have two beautiful children that I get to homeschool? As I reflect on the end of another year I am humbled and in awe of all the amazing things God has provided to our homeschool community and our household! I love reflecting at the end of the year as I begin to plan our next year of studies. If you are curious to see the recaps of previous years, here are some links:

2019-2020 / 2018-2019 / 2017-2018 / 2016-2017 

The end of last school year was difficult with the cancellations of so many field trips. As I reflected last summer on what I wanted for my children, I realized that the "pod" type of homeschooling was exactly what we needed and wanted. This past year has been life giving through the many small classes we held in our home and the nature outings that we participated with friends at local parks. There were no Nashville Symphony concerts but there were Composer Parties and recorder/ukulele jam sessions! We didn't have large co-ops but we did have poetry tea time with friends! Our Wild + Free community provided so many of our social outlets to spread the feast and I am very thankful!

Here's a breakdown of our school year by subject:

Knowledge of God

We were able to finish the books of Judges, Ruth, and 1st Samuel in the Old Testament, and Luke in the New Testament. I think the highlight of our school year was listening to the audio dramatization of John Bunyan's Holy War. We also started going to a wonderful church plant in the home of some amazing friends that are affiliated with Abundant Life church in Kansas City. At home we would enjoy watching the videos produced by the children's ministry and participated in the Bible reading and lessons on Sunday mornings. Our missionary stories and church history came from readings from Peril and Peace and Missionary Stories with the Millers. We didn't read as much as I would like from these two books so I will continue to use them in the next school year. We also continued to work through our catechism books by New City Catechism. I plan to put the music on a CD this summer to review all the questions we studied this year. Here are some links to some of these resources that I've mentioned:
Holy War audio dramatization

Journey Today Show (Abundant Life) and we also enjoyed watching Church At Home

Peril and Peace book

Missionary Stories with the Millers book

New City Catechism

Knowledge of Man

History has been one of my favorite subjects in homeschooling especially since we've always approached it with living books! A big part of our 1800-1900 American History overview has been the Civil War and we're lucky to live in an area rich with field trip opportunities!

In my planning post here the only book we didn't get to was the D'Aulaire Buffalo Bill. I was hoping to read it with Eva Mae since Christian already read it a few years ago but we never stuck it in since most of our history was more enjoyable all together! Here are some of the novels we enjoyed:

Stout Hearted Seven / Sutters Mill / By the Great Horn Spoon / Golden Spike / Lizzie's War / Caddie Woodlawn / COFA Susan B Anthony

We also used history spines America First and TN History for Kids Torn Union

Geography didn't go as well as I wanted it to regarding mapwork in the second semester, but our 1st semester was wonderful! We completed all the states, capitals, mountains, and rivers in the USA with the Trick Geography books! In the second semester I finished Shepherd Boy of Australia and used the atlas several times to learn about the landforms of Oceania. I also loved looking up YouTube videos while reading the Shepherd Boy of Australia. Many of the plants and animals native to the country were fascinating to watch! David Attenborough and Coyote Peterson were some of our favorites!

In the Halliburton Book of Marvels we got all the way up to the Panama Canal in the Occident book. We are going to pick up there for next year and add Trick Geography Europe to our geography studies!

Plutarch and Latin for Christian was such a wonderful class! I loved meeting with the boys at our home as we read through Julius Caesar with the Charlotte Mason Plenary guide! And our Latin studies used Legonium and Storybook Latin as our main texts. I am so impressed with all that the boys learned (and me too!) Our narrations took the form of comic strips and plays! I'm looking forward to next year!

Literature was planned through book parties this year! I kept a website devoted to the amazing activities we had after reading each novel! Check it out here! We loved Robin Hood , By the Great Horn Spoon, Swallows and Amazons, Because of Winn Dixie, Wild Robot, Hobbit, The Timepiece (Traveler’s League) and The Green Ember this year! For Shakespeare, we only did one play: Hamlet. We read the story out of our Nesbit book and then watched the Nashville Puppet show retelling. Other fun books we loved were Matilda, Danny the Champion of the World, Magic Finger, Esio Trot, and George's Marvelous Medicine all by Roald Dahl.

Language Arts and grammar I feel was not addressed as much as I would like. I am going to work on that more in this next school year, especially with some one-on-one time with Eva Mae. We did copywork with our readings, Bible verse copywork, typing, and some oral spelling bee games while driving in the car! (I call it "car school!" LOL!) Next year I am going to focus on using some grammar guides from Emma Serl that I bought last year.

Art was taught through small group classes at my house! We had such a great time in both semesters as we learned about elements of art in the first semester, and all about Picasso in the second semester! The reason we focused on Picasso is because our wonderful art museum finally opened up! We had a wonderful time viewing the masterpieces in person after studying them in our lessons! To read more about the lessons you can download my guide here! We also did some step by step drawing and observing in our nature journals. I originally planned for us to study 3 artists (one for each term) but we only spent time on daVinci in the first semester and Picasso in the second semester.

Music was not neglected at all this year! In addition to our folk songs and hymns, we had piano lessons and recitals, choir rehearsals with solfa, ukulele lessons, recorder lessons, and parties with our Composer Study Companion friends! I'm looking forward to studying the composers along with friends again this year! I started a local group so if you are in the area and want to join us, please message me!

Physical Education and Handicrafts were mostly done with our Wild Explorer's Group. We enjoyed meeting once a month to complete assignments in the guides and also providing service opportunities to the community! I'm looking forward to the next school year as well! We have such a great group and my kids love adding the stickers and patches to our field guides!

Chinese lessons continued with Meili coming to our house several times a month! We need to get better at practicing between our lessons!

Knowledge of the Universe

In the first semester we enjoyed lessons in our Natural History subject on these topics: Crayfish / Watershed / Grass / Tree nuts. In the second semester I discovered the Herb Fairy series of books and we have been studying all about the different common herbs found in a yard/garden! So far we have learned about Chickweed / Violets / Plantain / Lemon balm. All of our lessons can be found on this website! I love seeing the nature journals get thicker from our consistent lessons and study!Our garden classes have been about milkweed, flower arranging, lettuces, and feeding our pollinators! We also observed the butterfly cycle and released the butterflies at the community garden!

Math wasn't as consistent as I had hoped for this year and will be something I work more on next year. Christian picks up concepts very easily. We have several workbooks that he can go through to practice equations. I've been working with Eva Mae still on basic concepts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division but she is so much more of a tactile learner. I found that if we have a sheet of math problems it is hard for her to solve on paper, but if we use money it is easier for her to solve. I have had them memorize skip counting songs but need to spend more time on these fundamentals next year.

In addition to our nature studies, we have enjoyed learning about inventions with the book All About Inventors and Inventions. We still have several chapters to finish so I will be adding this to our curriculum next year. As I read a section of the book we will look up YouTube videos to learn more about the inventor or invention! We loved the story about Ben Franklin and the Leyden jar at Thanksgiving! Be sure to look it up if you never have heard of it!

In addition to all these subjects, we also had some wonderful field trips and learning opportunities throughout the year! Here are some highlights:

Camp Wonder Wander - we went horseback riding and made pottery on this fun overnight trip!

Backpacking and Camp food workshop with Greg Bearden

Wilson Family Farm compass orienteering and corn maze

Meals on Wheels once a month to serve the elderly in the community

Tennessee State Park travel on our fall and spring breaks

Christmas chime performance and our December term

Opryland at Christmas

Eva Mae's drama practices and performance of Frozen Kids

Rippavilla historic tour

Shady Acres Sheep farm tour

Train ride on the Tennessee Central Railway

We Love Books event where Eva Mae sold her copies of the Mermicorn

Family Folk Dance

Reelfoot Lake and Discovery Park

Mom and kid trip 2021 to Paris, TN

Plus just some laid back and fun playdates and hikes through the year!

I look forward to having this school year recap to look back on in future years and remember all of these fun events and activities! I didn't mention the "mother culture" but I also loved visiting with my homeschool mom friends for book clubs and painting parties! I'm so blessed to have these wonderful women in my life!