Year-End Reflections Part Three: Wrap-Up

Well, the school year has drawn to a close. Over the weekend, I made two photo journals of our year gone by, to document our learning as it happened. 

Part One
Part Two

I didnt' include everything. I didn't include our bookish things. Let me touch on those here for a minute:

Tuna and I completed the following books:

• Paddle to the Sea
• Little House on the Prairie
• On the Banks of Plum Creek
• By the Shores of Silver Lake
• Pippi Longstocking
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

We also completed Life of Fred Honey, Farming, and Goldfish, and we're in the process of Ice Cream. 

We read, cover to cover, Story of the World Volume 1. 

Our science experiments included, but were not limited to:

• mummifying apple slices
• growing soap in the microwave
• making water beads
• ice, salt, and tire traction
• crushing cans with only water
• attempting (unsuccessfully) to get an egg into a bottle
• making rock candy
• making a model of precipitation with shaving cream and food coloring
• breaking open rocks to see what's inside

Our "field trips included, but were not limited to:

• a lake beach and public gardens
• Savannah, GA (Historical places, culture, nature)
• Tybee Island, GA (Historical places, culture, nature)
• Myrtle Beach, SC (nature)
• Atlanta Zoo (nature)
• Wild Animal Safari, Pine Mountain, GA (nature)
• Palm Beach County, FL (nature, adventure, PE, family)
• Orlando, FL (fun! economics -- souvenir budgeting!)
• Jimmy Carter Historical Site GA (history, farm life)
• FL Keys (fun, nature, historical sites, geography, culture, art)
• Moving to Germany (passports, flight processes, airline procedure, foreign language, so much more)
• Dachau Concentration Camp Munich, Germany (historical place)
• Wolfstein Castle Neumarkt, Germany (historical place)
• Parsberg Christmas Market (historical place, culture, foreign language)
• Velburg Castle (PE, historical place, foreign language, photography)
• Wildlife Park (nature)

Other things we learned to do included, but were not limited to:

• Speak German
• Raise a garden
• renovate furniture
• draw anime
• find planets through a telescope
• hip-hop dance
• cheerleading
• gymnastics
• bake

I'd say our year was definitely a success. I'm happy with what we did. Looking onward to next school year, here's what's in store for us:

1. Bay's going back to school full-time. She's in high school and this is a choice she's made. 
2. Tuna wants nothing to do with school and loves being at home, and will continue hopefully for her entire school career. She has asked for more structure, though, so here's what that is going to look like:

Math: continue Life of Fred. We're planning to use Kidney, Liver, Mineshaft, Fractions, and Decimals & Percents. 

Science: Elemental Science Physics for the Grammar Stage

Language Arts: Bravewriter

History: Story of the World Volume 2

Also: Prague, France, Austria, Poland, UK, and possibly Spain and Portugal. Who knows? Maybe even the US for a couple weeks. :) 

Over the summer, I will continue posting what we're up to, because although my attendance record is full, we never stop learning. I love that. 

Year-End Reflections, Part Two

Note: This is part two of my series Year-End Reflections. Part One can be found here. 

Let's see. We stopped in mid-October. 

We made awesome cupcakes. FYI these knives are available at Michael's. The gel I bought at the grocery store.

Bay got bright pink hair

Bay discovered her passion for photography

Bay wasted no time making friends and exploring our area on her own.

We visited Dachau Concentration Camp. It was a sobering experience. 

November 2012:

We hosted Thanksgiving dinner for about a dozen single soldiers. My household goods had not yet arrived. And still, I managed to put on a great feast. 

 Poor Tuna was too sick to join us. She had her meal in bed, laying down, while intermittently vomiting. 

 g, Tuna was hospitalized for kidney infection, so we learned some German very quickly in order to communicate our needs with the staff. We also spent quite a bit of time watching German TV, including Disney channel, which helped our German, too. 

Those bandages are covering IV sites.

We visited Wolfstein Castle in Neumarkt in a snowstorm, and had the entire place to ourselves. It was eerily quiet, so we played tag, hide and seek, and had a snowball fight. It was epic. 

December 2012:

We went to several Christmas markets. This was our first, in Parsberg. It was snowing, and it was in a castle. 

We got more snow than we knew what to do with! There were lots of snow days this month!

Another Christmas market. These are great fun. 

We made and decorated cookies as a family. 

Bay got purple hair. And a bundle of cash. 

Tuna got a telescope!

January 2013:

Tuna and I spent the month learning about the solar system. We made a salt dough solar system, seen here. 

We made a bird feeder, which successfully drew large crowds of birds until it had to be unceremoniously cut down to make room for our new patio umbrella. We have since replaced it with a standard bird feeder. 

An edible cookie map of ancient Egypt!

writing on our paper!

February 2013

We did a lot of freestyle art this month.

March 2013:

March will forever be known as The Month I Taught Long Division in One Hour!

April 2013:

We baked cookies and made thank you cards for the places on post we homeschoolers use the most, and delivered them with our homeschool group. 

We learned how to renovate furniture

We made rock candy!

Bay worked on her anime eyes. Pretty darn good!

May 2013:

We hiked to Velburg Castle. 

We hung out in the castle ruins

We learned to spray paint wrought iron. 

Bay finished her math curriculum early: An entire year finished in five months. 

Tuna caught slugs and roly polies. 

We visited a place nearby called Wildlife Park, where we got to get up close with a bunch of native animals. Feeding ducks is always fun. 

And that brings us to June 1, today. There are many things I didn't photograph, many things I didn't include. But the last two posts give you (and me) a pretty good idea of what we did this year. In Part Three, I will review and assess our year, and talk about our plans for next year. Stay tuned!

Year-End Reflections Part One

As I am sure every good parent would do, I find myself now, at the end of the formal school year, questioning:

Did we do enough?
Did we experience enough?
Did we see enough new things?
What did we learn?

As someone who doesn't test, I must rely on my notes throughout the year, and my photographs, to answer this. 

So, did we?

Let's see. Let's start one year ago, and see what we did, what we experienced, what we saw, what we learned. 


May 2012:

This was a trip to Callaway Gardens in Georgia, to see the lake.

Tuna had her hip-hop recital. She was awesome!

Our trip to Savannah, GA included a visit to Tybee Island's lighthouse and beach. Here are the girls and dad atop the lighthouse. 

We visited historical Bonaventure and Colonial Park Cemeteries. We'd read up on these before our visit, so we knew to look for Little Gracie's grave (pictured here) as well as the history of the two cemeteries. 

Our dolphin tour was very cool. The guides told all about local wildlife, and we got to hold a jellyfish and a crab, in addition to seeing many dolphins (which are incredibly difficult to photograph!)

Playing in the chilly Atlantic ocean at Tybee Island. We also visited the lighthouse and museum here, which had a military focus. At the beach, we watched seagulls dive bomb small fish, and sometimes, they even caught one!

Fort Pulaski National Monument. I think this was our favorite part of our Savannah trip. Being a military family, we  enjoy and feel a connection to all things historically military. We got to see the cannon damage in the walls of this fort. There were still cannon balls stuck in the walls!

June 2012:
We visited the Atlanta Zoo, where Tuna got to feed, pet, and brush animals in the petting zoo, navigate the zoo for us with her map, feed parakeets off of overpriced sticks of seeds, and have a good time romping around, enjoying mom and dad to herself while Bay was with some friends elsewhere in the state. 

Tuna got a haircut...

...and donated her ponytail to be made into wigs for kids with cancer!

Cheer camp!

 July 2012:

Scorching July in Georgia. We spent a lot of time at the pool. 

We tried bubble painting. It was fun, but short-lived. 

While Bay was at summer camp in Florida (a first for her, and she loved it!), Tuna and I visited  Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain, Georgia. The best part of this place is the drive-through safari. You can either drive your own car or rent a van to drive through. The vans have no AC. I risked it and drove my car. Worth it. Anyway, you buy some overpriced food and you feed the animals that wander to your window. You're supposed to throw the food to the ground, not in their mouths. But who could resist? Not us!

One of the noses that pressed itself into our car. :)

Not for the squeamish. We had lick marks, red clay mud, and nose prints all over our car, inside and out, when we were done. Again: worth it. 

Tuna's reaching down to feed something low to the ground. 

I think the buffalo were so ridiculously cute. Look at that eye. 

They learn to beg at an early age. 

What a great way to get up close with nature!

This guy made us a wee bit nervous!

I covered the table in spices, herbs, and dry foods, paper, glue, paint brushes, and various utensils, and invited the girls to make a collage. 

Learning to kayak

The girls went to Florida in July without me: A big step, and I missed them very much. But they had a blast with Grandma, Grandpa Ken, and my grandparents. 

 Swimming at the neighborhood pool

relaxing at the beach

ripsticking at the park

Walking Grandma's dogs is always fun. 

They went to Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure, and stayed at Portofino Bay Resort. Fun and luxury. 

Taking the ferry to the resort after a long day of play

Fun times in Seussland

I think this was the Hulk coaster? Not sure. 

Talking to me on the phone :)

Getting to spend time with Great Grandpa: priceless

We tried Time 4 Learning in late July. It didn't work out for us, but we did keep at it for a couple of months. It was a transition period for us. 

August 2012:

This was the day we found out we were moving to Germany! We were so excited!!!

On Jimmy Carter's boyhood farm, the kids got a personal "school tour" from a tour guide, who taught them how to use the very well Jimmy Carter used to bring water to his house every day. 

How to shuck corn for the animals by hand...

Free private tours are the best. :)

September 2012:

We were in transition this month. We had stayed at a hotel for several weeks once our house was packed up for the move to Germany. Then we went down to South Florida to stay with my mother until our passports arrived. 

We took a trip to the Florida Keys. Splendid time. Special place. 

GREAT pie. 

We snorkeled here, at this very beach. The sea life we saw was amazing. Also, a wee bit frightening, as the murky water was perfect shark territory. We didn't see any sharks. 

One of the beaches we walked in the Keys

October 2012:

We moved to Germany! We took our first trans-Atlantic flight and we moved to Germany. 

Our neighborhood grocery store took some getting used to. It has never taken me so long to shop for groceries. Reading labels in German was tricky, but we worked together and so far, we haven't accidentally eaten anything weird. 

The jet lag was killer. We spent many a day inside, waiting for it to pass. 

The view from atop the castle in our little town. 

Raking leaves is a novelty for us, having lived in the south for so long!

OUR FIRST SNOW! It was nothing, a dusting is all, but Tuna got out her sled and went down the hill anyway. 

How we dressed those first few weeks in Germany. 

...To be continued