“Is this the very last week ever?” Cue the tears.
We finished off the last state sheets.
We drew our last birds.
We wrote letters to President Obama. Three versions to be exact since the first was awful: “Dear President Obama, No one around here really likes you that much but we still have to be respectful.” Yeah, it definitely needed work.
And the world’s greatest science teacher taught my kids about electricity and computers. Let’s face it guys, I just had a marathon three weeks of science projects and invention activities. I am exhausted. Next week we’ll kick off our summer break with some fun coding work from Cody for Beginners Using Scratch. But for this week, Ms Frizzle had my back. Thanks, Frizz. You’re the best.
I am so profoundly thankful for this year and for this curriculum that worked so well with our Classical and Charlotte Mason style of learning. I was able to add in exactly what would work best for our family: Beautiful Feet books, Simply Charlotte Mason, Ambleside Online and Classical Conversations. It was the perfect mixture for us and I am so thrilled with how it all came together.
But Dear Reader….. (scroll allllllll the way down)
My dearest hope when I began to blog our Adventures year was that my posts would encourage other homeschool mamas to figure out ways to make school work for their families. I loved finding bits and pieces of information that shaped and formed our personal philosophy of education. I felt like I was building a beautiful nest out of the best materials I connected with from an endless wood of homeschool material. I’m thankful for all those voices and blogs and stories that lent out fragments for our homeschool. When I started writing, I didn’t want to give a bullet point list for homeschool success, some burdensome unattainable, unrealizable list. The last thing anyone around here needs is more false pressure. I simply wanted to let you all peak in through the window and catch a glimpse of how we made things work for our family, in the hopes that you would find one or two small things that would spark an idea in your own mind to carry back home with you and fit alongside the other pieces of your own philosophies. I hope that happened for some of you. I know sometimes we look at blogs and we only see our insecurities and walk away feeling “less than enough.” I’ve done it to myself quite often. Hopefully you saw past the edges of my pictures and realized that there were children fighting, dirty dishes, endless loads of laundry and a homeschool mama trying to keep it all together.
In June we will begin our Exploring Countries and Cultures year (unless the kids drive me bananas and they beg to start sooner). Thank you for joining us on our Adventures year. Thank you for all the questions and encouragement and feedback. We are thankful for you too!
Onward Explorers!!!
farmhouseschoolhouse.com 
Thank you so much for taking the time to blog your Adventures journey. I have three boys myself (one with sensory issues) so your blog is a great blessing to me. It is nice to have somewhere to go to find ideas of things that work for busy boys. And what an extra bonus that it is someone using the same curriculum! You help inspire me to slow down when I want to push through because I feel we are “behind” or that we are getting too far away from how it would work in traditional school. I have needed your reminders that we homeschool for a reason and that we should take advantage of the benefits that come with doing so. I hope you will continue to blog through ECC!
LikeLike
Thank you, Katy! That brought tears to my eyes. I am grateful for your encouragement. YES we will be blogging through ECC!
LikeLike
I am just starting to piece together our own journey of MFW and Beautiful Feet, and I came across your blog. I wish we could be friends in real life! Thank you for sharing your school and your life with us.
LikeLike
I hope you have a beautiful school year! Thanks for the encouragement!
LikeLike
I have spent hours poring through your posts as I begin to plan our Adventures adventure😉. Your writing is just beautiful and I absokut it love the way you homeschool. I am praying about doing CC (cycle 3 – so, perfect!!!!) along with Adventures. I also very much want to incorporate the Beautiful Feet books as well as nature study, and also spread out our study of Adventures to a solid calendar year or more to allow us time to explore. Encouraging to see that you started Adcentures 10 weeks before CC started, because I was planning to do that and in glad to know it works out well. I will also have a tagalong kindergartner, preschooler, and a newborn. So it should definitely b an adventure!!!😉 Thank you for blazing the trail so beautifully!!!❤
LikeLike
I just had my fourth boy too! So my question is, how is ECC going and what ages are your kids? We are in the middle of adventures with my 2nd grader, and the 5 y/o/Kindergartener is just learning to read (I’m not doing anything else with him). So I’m interested in next year being ECC with a third grader and a first grader, but not sure how that would actually work, since MFW recommends still doing the 1st grade curriculum and not starting the family learning cycle yet. BUT, let me tell you, I DO NOT have time for two separate curriculum!
LikeLike
I just finished reading through all your blogs from your year of adventures! Thank you Thank you for the window into your year of homeschooling! It was such a treat and I just loved some of your ideas! Some of them I already had written down and I added many new ideas and links! I start my year of adventures in 3 weeks with my 3 girls ages 5,7, and 7. I’m sure our year will look a little different but I hope they have many wonderful adventures. Thank you so much for this blog and I just LOVE your style of homeschooling! It matches my goals as well.
LikeLike