2023 Last Days of School

You guys. We start school in two days and I haven’t even posted about their last day from last year. You are probably wondering if my kids actually passed their last grades. The kids had their last day at their “out school,” we did two days of exams and then had their End of Year Performance and then we went out of town for a month. We got home and still had about two weeks of minor things to finish up. Then our days were so full that I have not had time to officially “close out” our year. We had a super full year, an even fuller summer, and yes, it is true–this blog post is BETTER LATE THAN NEVER! 🙂

To sum up our 2022-2023 school year: The kids were introduced to the study of ancient history and the world of mythology and ancient writings–all from a biblical worldview. We enjoyed many wonderful books together and had another very sweet year with our little learning community. Since our school only goes through 6th grade, this was Elliott’s last year attending. It is bittersweet, as most “ends” are. He will miss the school and his friends but is also very much looking forward to what’s next.

Our studies included: ancient history; physical science; Vermeer, Turner and Homer; Kipling, Hughes, and Stevenson; Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms. For nature studies we focused on pond life, birds and wildflowers. They memorized Genesis 1:26-27, Colossians 1:15-20, Luke 1:46-55, Habakkuk 3:17-19, and Proverbs 2:1-10 (and tons more Scripture for church, but these were their school verses). They studied some “Ancient Civilization” countries–several from Europe, Africa and Asia. For the first time in many years I just could not keep track of all of the books that they read. I tried, lost the list multiple times, and just couldn’t keep up with the hundreds of books. I’m a little sad because I really do love noting which books we thoroughly enjoyed but this year was SO FULL and busy that it just didn’t happen. However, I can list a few of our favorites: We did enjoy children’s versions of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, The Cat of Bubastes, The Golden Goblet, The Bronze Bow, Boy of the Pyramids, A Single Shard, Where Mountain Meets the Moon, A Triumph for Flavius, and Detectives in Togas. We finished the fifth book in a series we have thoroughly enjoyed the last couple of years called “Among the (Pond, Forest, Night, Meadow, and Farmyard) People.” They are sweet little stories about animals that have great morals. The kids both performed in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. They LOVED this play! Elliott was Don Pedro–one of the leads. He had 87 lines and did a wonderful job despite being sick for the performance! He got to wear a mustache and I think that experience will leave him clean shaven for the rest of his life ;). Though Selah only had a few lines as Ursula, she hit the ball out of the park and her character truly shone through her. At the end of the year, as is tradition, the kids each studied a person from ancient history, dressed up as that person and gave a speech from his point of view. Selah was Julius Caesar and Elliott was Hannibal. The kids continued with their Latin study this year and, of course, progressed with their math curricula. At the beginning of the year we hosted a “pond day” with our church homeschool group. The kids prepared little presentations and talked about the flora and fauna that we have seen in and around our pond. They taught our church friends a song about vertebrates and invertebrates, facilitated a time where friends could place an animal or plant life where it belongs on a huge mural we had drawn of the pond and surrounding area, read picture books and then I led a watercolor lesson for the group. Then, everyone jumped into the pond to play! Pond Day was definitely a highlight of our year! Winter Market was, of course, another huge highlight. Oh! And during the End of the Year Performance, Selah was one of five kids selected to sing a solo. It was her first solo! She did very well. A couple other things that stand out from this school year–we all wrote limericks and that was a hoot. I should post those below. The kids also really enjoyed doing research papers this year. It’s Elliott’s third research paper and one of his favorite parts of school. He wrote about fish and Selah wrote about hedgehogs. It was such a special and fun year of learning!

Here is a collage of photos from events with the kids’ classmates:

And here is a collage of photos from the Pond Day we hosted for our church homeschool friends:

One of the things we absolutely love about our church is the multi-general aspect of it. It really is like one big family–we aren’t segregated into age groups for events like these. The youth in our church are youth that I want my children to model after. They are strong in their faith and kind, and always take the littles under their wings. Pond Day was no exception as the big kids took the little ones on boat rides and everyone enjoyed a lovely day together!

Here are our limericks for your enjoyment:

(If you haven’t heard, Selah actually has a hedgehog named Jill!)

Alright, and now it’s time for their end of the year photos and papers! This will possibly be Elliott’s last year of drawing first and last day self-portraits. I think he went out with a bang! Neither of the kids particularly enjoy drawing themselves but they also LOVE flipping back through their old ones. So I told Elliott he could be done now that he’s officially in Junior High :). The kids also complain every year that there isn’t enough space to write down all the books they love. I suppose if they’re going to complain about something, that’s a good thing to complain about.

And now for my favorites…the compare and contrast from the first to the last day!

Way to go, kiddos! We did it! We had another rich, fun, challenging and filled-with-memories school year! Thanks be to God!