The Things I Love Most

Tips To Enjoying Life With Your Family

How Our 2013-2014 School Year Went

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This summer is going by way too fast and I haven’t had the time to look through my pictures yet and get this post up.  It’s kind of a long post, but it’s fun!  Enjoy!

We did year 2 of The Family School again through Latter-Day Learning.  Again, we LOVED it and plan on continuing on with year 3.  This year they have an online program which will be nice.  I am finally getting an iPad so that will be nice to teach from!  We are done working with the Utah Online Program.  Didn’t love it, it’s WAY to much busy work and very repetitive.  My kids hated it, I hated it, so we are moving on.  More to come in another post as far as what we are demoing for Math and Language Arts curriculum

We had a great school year though.  Sometimes while I am in the middle of it all and am having a hard homeschooling day (we all have them) I get frustrated, I don’t think I am fun, or I think I am failing at homeshooling.  Then the next day we have an amazing day and the kids love what they learn and life moves on.  We have about one hard day a week, or hard moment which makes it feel like a hard day!  I would have to say though, this year was a pretty good year.  The only thing I feel like I could have done better was work a little harder with my Kindergartner, he wasn’t really into participating with us.  I need to remember he was five and really did learn a lot for a five year old.  No regrets!  As I looked through all my pictures it made me realize just how much we did.  Besides having regular school days everyday doing Math, Language Arts and The Family School, we had tons of fun and enjoyed lots of extra activities.

One of the highlights of this year was meeting a whole ton of homeschoolers in the area and joining a Co-op and going on field trips with them!
The kids also did a running club the first half of the year and worked really hard.
We made a Timeline…
Look how many people we learned about….
We played in the snow, we should never have gotten this much snow.  It was amazing, and the kids were so excited!
We took our first family of seven road trip to California,
And our kids got to see the ocean for the first time….it was really this magical.
We enjoyed Legoland, and the SeaLife Aquarium.
We participated in a Live Nativity at Tuachan in St. George which was an amazing experience.
We were creative and had lots of fun.
We had early morning LeapPad time.
We went to the Children’s Museum and had fun pretending.
We learned to work together and help each other out.
We learned a lot of patriotic songs and learned many many many times you put your RIGHT hand over your heart and hold the flag with your left!
We filled journals with exciting stuff!
And challenged ourselves with reading at a higher level.
We loved this baby more and more every day, and I spent a lot of time rocking with him. Which I loved, and so did he!
We worked hard in Math,
Scouts
and Art.
{She listened to a million books on CD and also read a million books}
We learned about Rome, the meridian of time and the Apostasy, Joan of Arc.  She read great literature which included poetry, Julius Caesar, The Bronze Bow, The Door in the Wall and a lot more. We studied Europe in Geography and learned specifically about Norway and France.  We loved learning about Astronomy and Geology in Science.  We studied Art of the middle ages, including Cathedrals, stain glass and pottery.  And last but not least we learned about the different Era’s of music, music theory, instruments and also studied the famous master luthier, Scarlatti.  We learned a lot!
We learned that a little stick twirling and running around outside helps us not be so crazy inside.
We watched some great episodes of Wild Kratts, Liberty Kids and the Magic School Bus!
We read lots of stories.
Played LOTS of Legos.
Worked hard at our instrument!
Learned to work together and be creative.
Went on a couple girls days out to some great plays!
Enjoyed playing Soccer,
or just hanging on the goal.
We built a clubhouse in the back yard…
We leaned to care for new animals, and learned to say good-bye to a couple.
{Fatty the Chicken died}
We swam, and went on other fun field trips with our new Homeschool friends!
We played at the park.
And went to an airplane show.
And saw a play at a fun outdoor theater.
We learned many, many great principles from all of our family school lessons.
We studied, memorized and learned a lot from the Scriptures.
We had crazy hair day.
We had fun with Daddy at the Fire-station.
We learned to cook and each came up with our own yummy cookie recipe.
{Mine were No-Bake,  Cowboys were Oatmeal Chocolate Chip and LaLa’s were delicious cake mix cookies!}
We fought knights,
and played Secret Service Ninjas.
We went on hikes,
Read so much we were exhausted!
Played jokes on each other!
{They loved their April Fools Mustaches}
We learned all about the Virgin River.
Ombre’d our own white T shirt.
Learned to explore the world around us.
Made our own lunches.
And enjoyed playing in the dirt with our new “digga trucks”!
Looking back we learned so much, had a wonderful year and enjoyed ours days together.
Lots of people ask me if we do summer school.  We do….a little!  We still read, read scriptures, write in our journals and have mom or dad read aloud time.  We also have a Family School Lesson about 3 times a week and they do a little grammar and a little math.  But for the most part, we play, explore, vacation a little, probably watch a little to many movies and and have way more arguments and fighting around here than normal.  I like the break, but my kids do behave a lot better when we are in homeschool mode.  Oh well, summer goes fast, and then we will back to school life again.
How did your school year go?

Comments

  1. You have a fabulous family and I loved all the activities and pictures. I think you learned a ton. I am very impressed with it all; you are a great example.
    Blessings and hugs for all the hard work and fun you had.