This may prove to be tricky, as I was without a camera for a good chunk of the year, thanks to curious little hands. Even still, we had so much fun and learned quite a lot!
Maria was seemingly constantly at work, building and creating.
Maria also kept a regular rotation of pen pals from places like Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, and Colorado.
We kept a decent focus on chemistry and astronomy this year. It was especially exciting with the solar eclipse! We were able to observe the partial eclipse in our back yard, as well as video conference with some friends in Kansas who were able to view it fully!
(Sorry, I don't know how this uploaded sideways.)
We also kept busy with artsy projects, of course.
We had several opportunities for hands-on applied biology, courtesy of our chickens! They're familiar with the egg development and laying processes, as well as some first aid!
A broken beak led to some research on how to best help recovery.
Maria did much of the cuddling while the boys did application of medicines and feeding the chicken wet mash so she didn't starve.
We lightened the school load in October to welcome a new sibling and let Mommy recover from hernia repair.
Joseph and Thomas remained involved heavily in Scouts, learning a lot about team sports, citizenship, first aid (for people rather than chickens, haha!), and physical fitness.
We also went to Lancaster and learned about the railroad system in the United States, and its role in the explosion of travel and commerce in our history.
The boys participated in a chess tournament. Thomas is currently in the championship round!
There was also time spent at a working farm to better familiarize them with animal husbandry.
Maria participated in a home building competition where she advanced to the semi-finals.
She built a house for a large family, complete with an attached family bakery for income,
and a farm for locally sourced ingredients for the bakery.
These pictures are repeats, but the kids organized a trip to historical sites in our area (Valley Forge and Philadelphia) to take pictures with their cousin's Flat Stanley. They did research about the sites to help their cousin put context to the pictures before sending Flat Stanley back. We were told that her class loved the pictures and the information. :-) We have pictures of all of that, but I have no idea where they went. Among the places we visited were Betsy Ross' house, Ben Franklin's grave, Independence Hall, and Liberty Bell Hall.
This year has been a bit rougher than normal, with the new baby and surgery for me and a series of weird illnesses for my husband, but we trucked along as best as we could. Homeschooling is so beautifully forgiving like that! And the kids soak up anything and everything we do. They did continue with video conferencing with their math tutor twice weekly (up from once a week), as well as book work, reading, library trips, and online programs through ABCya, Khan Academy, and video lectures on YouTube. To ramp up and continue our learning experience, we are leaving for a cross country trip this month! We will be visiting fish hatcheries in Missouri, using maps, seeing fossilized dinosaur footprints, fossilized redwood forests, sand dunes, and so much more! This year was good, next year will be phenomenal!
