A Little Update for 2023
After a break from social media, I’m back to Instagram and back to blogging. For a minute there I wondered if I’d come back because the break was so nice, ha! But, my R&R has come to an end and it just felt like the right time to get back on here.
I hope everyone had a great holiday! This is the first Christmas since the beginning of the pandemic that we were able to share Christmas with my side of the family and it was wonderful. My mom and dad (who are both in their 80’s) hosted a beautiful Christmas dinner and gifted our family my Dad’s childhood history. It will be such a treasure to have.
Nothing too exciting happened over here the last few weeks, but we did make some adjustments to how we’re doing our unit studies, which I’ll talk a bit more about below! But first, here’s a few fun things we did and worked on while we were on our social media break!
Family and Lots of Reading
We celebrated two birthdays — my husband’s and my middle son’s!
We were able to visit the Family Search Library and we spent hours exploring and learning more about our ancestors which has been a homeschool focus of ours this year.
We read lots! I read our first longer chapter book to my six year old - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. (Which was also the same one I read to my twins as their first longer chapter book.) We watched the 1970’s version of the movie and it was so fun! He also listened to The Wild Robot and is working his was through The Wild Robot Escapes right now. The twins and I read Charolette’s Web because they’re still all about farms and animals and when we finished up the book they planned a “Pig Party.” We made pig cookies and celebrated by also watching the movie. I gifted the girls Keeper of The Lost Cities for Christmas - which they flew threw in about 2 days. And right now they’re working through the 5th book of Harry Potter.
Since homeschooling, I have read a lot of books like these with my kids. But, as far as books for just me, I’ve been a pretty avid non-fictional reader. I don’t know why but something about making this switch in my life triggered a lot of of non-fiction books in my queue…probably so I could also be learning and teaching along side the kids. But, after three years, and this is slightly embarrassing to admit, I finally read my first fiction book again. And it was so good and so needed. One of my good friends gifted me Once Upon A Wardrobe for Christmas. She knows me well and knew just what I needed to open my heart back into a good story. After reading it, I realized I really need more warm-hearted books in my life and so I read two more! A Proper Scoundrel and A Proper Scandel — both clean regency romance books. I’d recommend all three if you’re looking for some great reads right now. And my goal this year is to read more fiction, ha!
Speaking of reading…we also began our study of the New Testament. To see more about what we’re doing for that, you can read about it here. My favorite additions to our study materials this year has been the fine art images we’re using that the Well-Educated Heart complied. I’m also a few chapters into Jesus The Christ and know why I felt so impressed to read it. It’s been a such a rich and beautiful read.
We’ve also been binging The Chosen. I’ve already seen the first two seasons twice now, but upon the recent release of the third season, we decided to start over and watch it with the kids. We’re three episodes into the third season now and it’s been so neat watching along side with my older girls. Along with the other millions of people who have watched it, it has sure strengthened my testimony of our Savior. If you haven’t seen it yet - make it a priority to start it ASAP. (FYI You may want to skip episode 1 or at least preview it first if you’re watching with young kids.)
Simplifying
We’re simplifying. This word quietly crept into my mind last Spring and then by about this last fall it has been shouting at me from the rooftops. I have sensed it among many others too…a need to return to some basics. I wonder how much the world turmoil of these last few years have played into this. It seems we’ve all tried to return to once was and in some ways that’s been exactly what we need, but in others, we’re all different and what worked before isn’t working anymore. So the year of 2023 is going to be a simpler year for us. I’m sure I’ll talk more about this as the year moves on. The first place I started was with deep decluttering in our home. As I’ve been doing this I’ve adopted a lot of the Simply Clean routines and suggestions into my housekeeping and it’s working really well for us to upkeep our home. I love cleaning! But, it takes a lot of time, ha! So I’ve tried to be better about doing a little bit each day. I feel like I have so much to do all the time and this book really helped me prioritize and take away the mentally energy I was spending on trying to figure out where to start.
Unit Studies
Finally, I’ll leave you with our unit study update! We are actually piloting some new homeschool resources that align with our church. For those who do practice the same faith as we do - I am not ready to share about it quite yet. But, I am sure once I have a little experience behind me, I’ll share more and we’re really excited about it!
The way the materials are presented are in two week unit studies and so I’ve decided to align the rest of our year’s unit studies with their materials. It worked out really well because some of the topics we’d already planned to do anyway. And so far, I am LOVING being in a new unit every two weeks! It’s given our homeschool a little refresh and motivation to keep going through the winter blues.
A few weeks ago we did a Geology unit (made a fun volcano!) and right now we’re working on an Economics and Entrepreneurship unit. To supplement, I've been pulling some material from this Tuttle Twin unit which we’d already planned to do this year anyway. And, we’re also re-reading The Tuttle Twins series. We read this when the twins were younger, but, they’re at a much better age to understand some of the concepts being taught in the books and it’s opened so many great discussions! When you do an economics unit or are using any type of liberty or law materials, I would highly recommend using the Tuttle Twin series. These really are some of the best books out there because they simplify a lot of complex ideas in a way children (and adults) can understand better. I’ve learned a handful of things reading them too! A lot of people ask the best ages for them and I would say 8 or 9+. We pulled from the first 10 units of the economics curriculum — we are also using the other pilot program resources, but I hadn’t had those I would’ve stuck with the curriculum and probably continued on with the other units available for purchase.
We also watched all the coordinating Tuttle Twins cartoons. Honestly, they’re not my favorite…really cartoony material is not my preferred teaching/learning style and there is some very mild potty humor. But, all 4 of my kids loved them…in fact, they begged to watch them so we cruised through the series pretty quickly and they’re dying to find out when Season 2 will be released. One of the episodes was a spin off of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was super fun since we just finished the book. Ultimately, each episode teaches fantastic lessons though so even though the delivery isn’t my style, I am really glad we watched them all. The cartoons are just slightly different stories, but the same principles are being taught and it’s definitely the kind of material I hope my kids have a better understanding of than I ever did. The night we finished the series, I saw the twins drawing Ethan and Emily (the Tuttle twins) on our white board with speech bubbles that said, “Protect our rights!” So, that’s always a good indicator they’re learning! The episodes are completely crowd funded and can be watched for free on the Angel Studies App.
We’ll be finishing up the books and our unit study by Friday. In addition to the books, the girls also created a “business plan” (which I accidentally tossed, yikes!) and some “marketing pictures” for their dream cleaning business. I also let them help me with a bunch of the photos for this post. They had to learn how to use my tripod, stage items, and then edit and import photos. It was really fun! For our unit final, we’re going to pick someone from Inspiring Entrepreneurs and learn more about their life, of course add them to our History Timeline Book, and then we’ve got a fun field trip planned with friends to a local cupcake shop that someone here locally started. What Do You Do With An Idea? is a fun picture book to go along with all things STEM or entrepreneur related.
As usual, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions! Happy New Year!
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