Our Adventures in April

I can’t believe we are already in May! I hope everyone is having a wonderful spring season, our family sure is. 

April was a very busy month for us, not just in school but as a family as well. Here’s a quick rundown of our family events and then I’ll go into more detail about what we did in school.

Family Update

The first weekend of April Nathan was gone with Boy Scouts for a leader training weekend called the Wood Badge. This meant I was solo parenting it for 3 full days. For all, of you single moms out there doing this day in and day out I have so much more respect for you. I was exhausted from not having my partner with me to balance things out. 

Each year there is a Literature and Music event held in Tallahassee called Word of South. This year we got to participate as part of their social media team and we had a blast. We got to see Jennifer Daniels perform as part of Literacy Lane which is all geared to kids and my kids had so much fun with her. If you haven’t listened to her music before I would highly suggest it. She also brought a beautiful picture book that she wrote and we got a copy of it. I can’t count how many times we have read through it. Another band that we got to see is JigJam. They are a band from Ireland that has figured out how to blend traditional Irish music and bluegrass and the sound is nothing short of amazing. They have a great stage presence and even though most of their jokes went over the kids’ heads we all had fun. If you have the chance to check out Word of South next year I would highly suggest it.

Nathan had another weekend of Wood Badge towards the end of the month and that Saturday was so busy that I didn’t notice so much that he wasn’t there. The Leadership class at one of our local high schools wanted to do a service project and they choose to do a family picnic for Hang Tough. I can’t remember if I’ve talked about Hang Tough in the past but they are a non-profit that helps families that have kids with childhood illnesses or special needs. Hang Tough really has made a difference in our family’s life. So that was a fun event to go to. After the picnic, I had a homeschool co-op planning meeting for our fall term so the kids went and played at my parents’ house while I was at that meeting. After the planning meeting, my parents and I (and the kids) went to the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra’s Pops in the Park. We brought a blanket and dinner and enjoyed beautiful music, beautiful weather, and wonderful family time. 

Like I said, a busy month!

School Time Update

Now on to school. Rosalynn started a clay class at one of the city’s art centers with her best friend and they have been loving it. We have a few more sessions before it ends for the summer but I think we will be doing it again in the fall (if it all works with our schedule).

Co-Op finished for the Spring and while we normally have a recitation night to celebrate it most of the families ended up with a sick kiddo so we canceled the event. 

We finished Trumpet of the Swan as our literature read aloud and started Chengli and the Silk Road Caravan. Both of these are part of Build Your Library Year 2. I use Build Your Library in our “off” time since we are year-round homeschoolers. It just adds a different layer to our school year. Both big kids finished their current book in Explode the Code and started right into their next book. 

Our Wild and Free group also had a lesson on Fungi and during our hikes we saw multiple snakes, some beautiful flowers, lots of different types of fungi and a butterfly. Our next outing was to Springhill Tree Farm for a lesson on strawberries and to do some strawberry picking. That was by far my favorite so far this year. I also finally got over myself and decided to ignore my reluctance and self-doubt and start a nature journal. I am going to be more intentional about nature journaling in the future and not being so hard on my artwork. The reason for a nature journal isn’t the quality of the art work but the information added. 

As our 2021-2022 year comes to a close and I start working on summer plans and next fall plans I am really taking the time to reflect on what is working, what isn’t working, what I’m keeping, what I’m changing and how I’m going to start Kindergarten with Benjamin!

I hope you had a wonderful April and I can’t wait to share with you what May brings us.