These last two weeks have been a bit of a change-up. I love Charlotte Mason, but I need a bit more focus. I still love her philosophy and will be using her method, but I found a year of homeschool themes and I am going to be using those weekly themes to better organize our time. Last week our theme was Farms.

We read books about farms. I was able to go through our BOB Books & beginner readers and pick out Farm themed books. Having a theme made it easier to pick Sasha & Athena’s morning/individual baskets.

We went to Chrisholm Historic Farmstead. This was our first time there. They offer many free learning days for Homeschool Families. I liked being able to plan a field trip that went along with our theme. It felt like it had more of a purpose than just a random outing. We also read this week’s chapter of Charlotte’s Web on the way to the Farm which seemed fitting.

We do try to stick to free outings or free return outings (Pay for a yearly pass once for a year of free trips, ie. Glenwood Gardens, Zoo, Museum, Hamilton Co. Parks, etc.) To minimize costs. We also pack our own lunches & reusable waterbottles (or refill cups for specific places) to cut costs.

There was a fun “playscape” for the kids to play on.

We learned that fruits produce seeds (including eggplant, cucumber, & peppers- all of which we previously grouped in the vegetable category) & vegetables are edible plants that don’t have seeds (carrots, radishes, potatoes).

We enjoyed hanging out with the different animals.

We also learned that windmills were used to pump water & practiced pumping it to fill the animals water tub.

Here are some of the other classes they offer during September & October:

We also attended Grace Girls which is a group of homeschooled girls who meet up to learn skills, make friends & build strong mother/daughter relationships.

This month we are learning how to hand-sew. We learned the running stitch, the back stitch, and the blanket stitch this night. Ella & Mia also sewed their own tissue holders.

Ella is REALLY interested in sewing now, so I will have to keep my eye out for some vintage patterns for her at the thrift to get her started.

Sasha made these number counters for her math project this week. I really love how they turned out. I printed out the numbers, laminated them, and punched a whole in each one. We then fed a pipe cleaner through and Sasha counted the number of beads for each number. It kept her busy for awhile and she had a lot of fun doing it.

Each girl also made their own Abacus using the Smithsonian Math Maker Lab book that we rented from our local library.

We also made patterns out of fruit & counted our patterns before eating them for a snack.

The girls killed a wasp that got into the house then examined it.

The last couple weeks have had some obstacles & struggles in both schooling & home life, but overall I really do love homeschooling.

I have loved going on field trips with the kids. That was the biggest thing for me. It devastated me that I couldn’t participate in school events or field trips. I couldn’t be a room mom. Looking back on the photos of our field trips remind me why I wanted to do this in the first place. Having these experiences with my kids and learning alongside them is life changing.

I’ve enjoyed learning with them, being able to fully take in what we are reading (even if I have to read it three times to figure out what is being asked of me 🤪).

I’m figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Our schooling hasn’t been typical from the start. Ella only went to Kindergarten for half the year because of the world shutting down so I took up unschooling at home. First grade for her was weird because it was mostly at home but sometimes (2 days a week when in person at school, me teaching at home from their syllabus or Zoom meetings with a teacher. Second grade (Ella) & Kindergarten (Mia) were the only full year they attended school outside the home. I mostly have been homeschooling this whole time, unofficially. Somehow being “official” just feels different. Like if I mess up it’s all on my hands now. I just need to learn to relax and have faith in myself. We are doing just fine.

Until next time ♡ Mama Morozov

I’m a bit later getting this posted than I had hoped to since tomorrow is Friday & it’s already time to prepare another photo dump. I’m attempting to keep track of our weekly outings here & memorable moments or activities we do.

We took a trip to the Blue Ash Nature Park. They have a little story walk provided by the library. The kids played for a couple hours on the various playgrounds as well as the woods. We did a very light, child-led hike.

This is one of my favorite photos from our individual work time. It has been really nice sitting around the table together reading & learning.

I love being able to go back and re-learn with the kids. My parents gave me a really great educational opportunity and I threw it away at the time. I am blessed to be able to take this second chance, and realize how important it is to not mess it up again.

We took a field trip to the Cincinnati Zoo. I learned that the animals at our zoo are there for rehabilitation purposes and/or are totally incapable of living in the wild due to an injury or other issue, so they are being helped rather than caged prisoners.

I printed out Explorer Packs for the kids to fill out. It consisted of a scavenger hunt to check off animals we saw, an A to Z fill out types of animals we saw/read about at each habitat, a report about the favorite animal we saw, and a page to draw a picture of our trip. I loved bringing that to keep them focused, do our school work at the zoo, and have fun searching out knowledge rather than skipping over it just to see the animals.

Ella’s favorite animal is a Manatee. We loved watching them bounce up and down.

When we came home, the girls sat at the table and did their favorite animal reports. They used some of the Nature books I bought for our curriculum to find more facts about their favorite animal to write in their reports.

This trip to the zoo was definitely different than other trips we have taken in the past and I loved it. I’m really excited to take another trip back soon & see the other sections of the zoo we didn’t visit that day.

We went down to Lunken Airport to see, touch, and learn about historic airplanes- specifically military ones. We saw one fly & land. It was very loud (which bothers Sasha quite a bit) and the kids & I did not find this subject interesting, but it was an experience nonetheless. We skipped out on this trip pretty quickly & headed to the library instead.

They did get to stand on an airplane which was pretty cool.

Until next time ♡ Mama Morozov