Yesterday, we closed out our 5th week of homeschool just like that!

I can hardly believe it.

Its been a memorable whirlwind *almost month and a half of school. Our days are pretty standard this year with grades, 6th, 4th, and 2nd and a crazy two-year-old!

We’ve had so much fun studying the Ancients for the main course of our studies in addition to other staple subjects: math, reading/phonics, language arts, Bible, typing, handwriting, game schooling aka Fun Fridays and a few others.

The way in which I designed our school year is built around our family’s love of history. For the last five or six years, we’ve focused the entire year on one specific time period in history. Then, every year following, we go in sequential order with subsequent time periods.

We house a ton of our main objectives around the theme of that time period. This means we are able to eek out multiples subjects from just this one subject of history.

For instance, we immerse ourselves in literature from and about that time period, work on science related projects and conduct art studies. My kids also do research and writing assignments based on said period.

This year, we began the Ancients.

As many of your know, we come from a Christian background. We believe in the authority and trustworthiness of the Bible, God’s inspired word. This is the basis of how we view and engage in the world around us.

All that means is this forms the basis for everything in our lives, from how we live and act, the way I love on my cute hubby, the way I love and parent my kids, to the way we treat our friends (and even “foes”), etc. etc.

When it comes to educating my kids, its important to not “remove my Christianity” so to speak. Though we may be studying science, math or chemistry, if there are biblical truths or implications that can be drawn from those things, then we don’t ignore them. Its as simple as that.

In starting back at the Ancients this year, we couldn’t study it apart from Genesis. We’ve also covered what many people like to call “pre-history”, but for us, its just plain old history. This includes:

• Creation
• dinosaurs
• the Ice Age
• Noah & the Ark
• The Ancient Europeans & Stonehenge
• The Sumerians & Abraham

 Here’s a look at our Dinosaur Math Week. It was so much fun!

In the next six weeks, we will cover these topics:

• Abraham’s descendants
• an intro to Ancient Egypt
• the great kings & queens of Egypt
• the Exodus
• the Trojan horse
• a celebration of ancient Chinese inventions
• Ruth & Boaz
• the Chou Dynasty
• the beginning of Israel’s Kingdom

For those of you who are interested in how we have and will continue to go about our walk through the ancient world,  be on the lookout for a downloadable study guide that will soon be making its way into your inboxes!

Whoops, before I go I’ve got some VERY exciting news!

The Rumble Hunters‘ Coloring Adventure (I’m still working on the name so feel free to share any suggestions) is on the way!!!

Earlier today, I gave my incredible illustrator the green light on all the line drawings (that is the black and white outlines) of my book’s illustrations. He even cooked up a couple BRAND NEW, never before seen illustrations just for this coloring and activity book!

Now, I’m on to the formatting stage. I’ve located a formatter and am in the process of getting all the fun activities nailed down. All that to say, I promise you guys will be the first to know when the coloring and activity book is ready! I hope  it will be here just in time for the holidays! Say a little prayer for me y’all!

Also, I’m expanding! I will soon be offering more lesson plans for free and for purchase via my Freebies section and Store.

One more teeny, tiny (yet HUGE to me) bit of news is that this fall, I began the pilot for a homeschool co-op!!! The Able to Teach Homeschool Collective is officially up and running…well, virtually that is!

I will need to send you guys a more in-depth post about the ins and outs of how this all came to be a little later. Hence the reason why I’ve been a tad silent on this blog as of late. There’s a lot going around these parts!

Unfortunately, the collective is not currently accepting any new families. But the hope is with this pilot version’s success, it can be a launch pad to welcome more families in the forceable future!

What I can say in the meantime is it has been FABULOUS!!

This collective is more than I could have ever envisioned or hoped for!

What seemed like a crazy, scary dream some years ago is final here! I have five families besides my own currently enrolled. It’s been so much fun! Every week, the kids are practically begging to stay on our Zoom call for just a bit longer at the end of class! I’m beyond thrilled!

Don’t worry, I’ll be posting very soon about how we have spent our time in co-op.

Until next time, thanks for reading

Blessings,

Courtney