We’re in uncharted territory on unstable ground right now, and I’m trying to build us a lovely homeschool home — yet here’s a wilderness and wild beasts both native and scary scratching at the door. What I’m saying is I have been battling an autoimmune disease balancing meds that help but make me weak and sick. On top of this, I’m homeschooling 5 kids (those are the wild animals, half-naked and often smelly, I mentioned). These tiny beasts are, like, literally scratching at my door as I type.

Add to this the fact that my oldest is having her 4th open heart surgery in a week (as a parent, there are no words for of fear that engulfs you during this pre-op time; no matter how much I lean on God or friends and family, there’s an innate, primitive terror deep in my amygdala I can’t override); then even if everything goes perfectly the recovery is brutal.

We will all be sleep-deprived and juggling a long hospital stay, hours from home, finding meals on the go, tucking healthy children into hotel beds, switching off parental duties to sit bedside in the CICU alongside mysterious machines that gurgle or whir and alarms sound whenever a heart beat goes awry, while various fluids drain from my kid, awaiting x-rays at 4 am each day, anxiously awaiting updates at morning rounds and praying, praying, praying — all of that and we’re homeschooling on the road too. I’m furiously planning museum activities around our math, science and history. Why bother with homeschooling? Normalcy. The only normalcy I know to cling to right now — so I nest and plan.

Following the open heart surgery, a few weeks later, I have 4 weekly infusions for my (previously mentioned) autoimmune thing. I had a partial remission 10 months ago from the first, aggressive round. Praying for full remission this time. The drugs make me weak and they do strange things to my eyesight plus it makes my hair fall out (these are the mild effects). If I sound like I’m complaining a lot, I suppose I am. I’m honestly scarred because I see a wave of water rushing in, stories high, about to engulf us, and I’m just standing here bracing myself against the math word problems that we can take on the road.

That’s life. Life is good. I will take it.

This past month, beginning in August, we had a “soft opening” of our school year, earlier than I usually begin. But I know we may spontaneous combust at some point soon. Please excuse the prologue above: my constant inner dread rambles whenever I let it.

Now for the point of the post, for me as much as anyone reading thus far, here is a summation of what I have planned for the overarching school year. Good to see it in writing. I’ll try to categorize this into subjects, but with Montessori, one topic often bleeds into another, as schooling should in my opinion.

After all, all things are interconnected.

“We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe, and are connected with each other to form one whole community,”

Maria Montessori

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Disclaimer: Recall that this blog serves as our official homeschool portfolio for the 2022-23 school year. My three big kids are upper elementary to middle school now. My two youngest aren’t yet officially enrolled as homeschoolers, so I have less need to write what they’re up to, but I’ll get to them soonish.

Our 2022-23 School Year
Albums, Curriculum, Plan & Overview (big kids)

Math

(some review, some new depending on the kid)

• Teaching Algebra to the Adolescent: A Montessori Approach – Volume 1 starting in Oct. I’m DIYing some materials and need to order something still. If we do 4 lessons a week, we will end up finishing in May, a rough plan.
• Numberrock for videos in introduce lessons; so far I’m a fan.
• Times Tales new to us, but highly recommended and even our oldest with ID is retaining multiplication facts so far with this (woot).
• Cubing and Squaring, Square Root, Cube Root from Cultivating Dharma MATH 1 album (this is review, but it’s been a couple years since we last covered it, plan to add 1-2 lessons a week).
• Equivalence, Geometry Sticks, Solid Geometry from the Geometry Cultivating Dharma Album check out Kindling kids for hosting these free albums. (planning on 2-3 lessons a week, more heavy in the new year; I’m eyeballing the Waski Geometry for next school year.
• Cultivating Dharma Math 2 Album (we’re nearly done already, plan to finish early October and move into (first bullet point) the Waski math Algebra album).

Science

Follow along as I share my piecemeal lessons this year. We have done the Great Lessons many times before (from solar system to stellar nucleosynthesis to fundamental needs and human tendencies to civilizations and so forth). This year we started with Methuselah and soon will move onto geologic periods (definitely review) with a closer look at sea level changes from prehistory to now and lots of Florida Environmental Archaeology study planned.

History / Social Studies / Cultural

September through November:

• Florida History Unit beginning with a study of the Calusa people who lived from A.D. 1000 to the middle of the 18th century.
• Then onto Spanish Colonization that will take us to St Augustine. We’ll visit Castillo de San Marcos established 1672 (excited to use the 4th grader’s free park pass this year).
• We’ll visit the Florida Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Florida History plus Mission San Luis.
• Misc hands on projects time and energy permitting (fingers crossed) are planned…
• Covering briefly the Age of Exploration 1400s-1600s with a unit on the golden age of piracy (circa 1650 – 1730s). We plan to visit the Pirate Museum too.

January through May:

Hope to cover British West Florida (1763–1781) hands on in Pensacola then onto Winterpromise’s American Story (covers 1000-1850 roughly, beginning with Native American cultures across North America, followed by colonialism; then comes the American revolution (the British are coming!) up to Lewis and Clark (early 1800s).

Language

• Advanced grammar symbols and sentences with the 9 year old
• Grammar Keepers: Lessons That Tackle Students′ Most Persistent Problems Once and for All, Grades 4-12 following as outline, we do an exercise each day together on the white board, mainly review.
• We unofficially started learning Spanish with Language Transfer. This will likely be more of a focus next year. Getting our feet wet.
• Auditioning a few different writing workbooks. I’ll post when we find favorites that work. I started teaching Mary persuasive 5 paragraph essays last year. I want to expand to address all 9 Rhetorical Modes and I’m working on an outline for that (for I am a major English nerd, and I love it). Probably will start this formally in January because work in progress.
• Picked up the best, most delicious kids’ animal poetry book from Timberdoodle; I’ll review that soon here.

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Ok. Did I leave any subjects or critical topics out of this overview? Any suggestions on materials? What do I need to add? I will take all the help I can get. Praying for a fruitful school year ahead. Expect updates!

I’ll post after Josie’s surgery (double valve replacement). We welcome prayers for safety and for a smooth, successful repair, uncomplicated recovery, good health, and strong heart. Thank you so much.