This summer is flying by for our family, and I am hopeful that this month will be the best month of this year yet! I think (knock on wood) that we have turned a little bit of a corner with everything on our farm breaking and hopefully we can breathe a sweet sigh of relief. We have done an awful lot in the almost eleven weeks we have been here, so I think we should get a little reprieve before we start working on renovating the barn. All we have right now are our dogs and bees, but hope to have our horses over here in August, and then to add chickens.( If I had my wish, I would also have two alpacas, but that is another story!).

I have been thinking a lot about development and developmental homeschooling lately. I try to have a good amount of my homeschool planning done by the end of July if it is possible, but I think the place to start is always with development. I encourage you to go back and read some of the back posts about development. I linked some of my favorites here, and in the spirit of beginning with the end in mind, I started with the older ages:

After The Fifteen/Sixteen Change | The Parenting Passageway

Development of the Tenth Grader | The Parenting Passageway (this is age 15 for many Waldorf schools)

How Is Planning Going For Ninth Grade? | The Parenting Passageway (this is age 14 for many Waldorf schools)

Still Waters Run Deep: The Fourteen Year Old | The Parenting Passageway (more 14)

Developmental Fridays: The Thirteen Year Old | The Parenting Passageway

The Twelve Year Old | The Parenting Passageway

The Uneven Eleven-Year Old: A Traditional Developmental View | The Parenting Passageway

The Terrific Ten-Year-Old: A Developmental View | The Parenting Passageway

The Nine-Year-Old: A Traditional View | The Parenting Passageway

The Eight-Year-Old: A Traditional View | The Parenting Passageway

Peaceful Living with Your Super Seven-Year-Old | The Parenting Passageway

The Angry, Aggressive Six Year Old | The Parenting Passageway

The Fabulous Five –Year -Old! | The Parenting Passageway

Fantastic Four Year Old! | The Parenting Passageway

Peaceful Life with a Three-Year-Old | The Parenting Passageway

The Two-Year-Old: A Traditional Perspective | The Parenting Passageway

The One-Year -Old | The Parenting Passageway

In July we are also celebrating! Here are the things we are celebrating:

4- Independence Day

26- Feast Day of St. Anne and St. Joachim, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary

I am looking forward to sunflower festivals, catching fireflies, being in the pool and lake and at the beach and of course, being at the farm! Our nearly 20 year old and I have a little girls weekend planned as well, since I don’t get to see her as much during the school year as she is away!

Ideas for Things to Do With Children:

• Fourth of July decorating; patriotic crafts
• Find traditional patriotic American music to listen to!
• Go to Independence Day parades!
• Sunflower crafts
• Drying herbs and making things from herbs
• Picking produce; canning and preserving
• Earth looms and weaving could be lovely; see my summer Pinterest board for even more craft ideas

Ideas for the Home:

• Going through the school room or school area and cleaning out
• Ordering art supplies and new resources for the next school year
• Making new seasonal things for the home
• Changing out toys if you are on a toy rotation for smaller children
• Gardening – planting rounds of corn, green beans and peas, zinnias, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes right now!
• Getting ready for a new school year with new art supplies

Homeschooling/ Planning:

I posted our plan for our sixth grader in June, but here it is again in case you missed it! (Our oldest is at university and our high schooler is going to be attending high school in some form, so I am down to homeschooling one child!)

Fall: August – Greek History (Most likely will base on Live Ed’s booklet), Nature Study in the afternoon; September – Mineralogy; October – Roman History to include European geography; November – Physics; December – Geometry.

Spring: January – Medieval History; February – Business Math; March – Medieval Africa and African Heroes, African Geography; April – Zoology; May- Botany

We have some confounding factors as I am working and our sixth grader will be doing math/science out and two days of a middle school only boys experiential program, which leaves us about two and a half days at home to do the things we want! However, I am rolling with it and I think it will be ok. With this being our third child, I have a good idea where we are headed, which makes middle school planning easier!

I would love to hear what you are up to. Happy Summer (Or Winter, Down Under friends) vibes!

Blessings and love,

Carrie