Was this not the strangest winter of all time?! Our family definitely missed cozy school days inside while the snow gathered outside – but school continued nonetheless! Despite the holidays, Influenza A, pneumonia, and RSV, we somehow plugged along and are right about where we would like to be! These kiddos continue to amaze me with their academic independence and their self-motivation when it comes to their education. They are doing such great things.
CLICK HERE for all of the information on our school year, subjects, and curriculum choices.
Family
Come Follow Me
We finished our study of the Doctrine and Covenants! It was such a beautiful year with that and we are grateful for all that we learned. Our final bullet points of goodness for the winter were:
- All of Heavenly Father’s children will have the opportunity to choose eternal life.
- The Articles of Faith contain foundational truths of the restored gospel.
- “The family is central to the Creator’s plan.”
- Christmas
And we are really enjoying our new study of the Old Testament! I feel very driven this year with our study of the Old Testament and it is going so well. Our winter bullet points of goodness were:
- The Old Testament testifies of Jesus Christ.
- As a child of God, I have a divine destiny.
- I am created in the image of God.
- I need agency and opposition to grow.
- God calls me to do His work despite my weaknesses.
- I can help build Zion.
- There is spiritual safety in following the Lord’s prophet.
- God wants me to make and keep covenants with Him.
- Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac is a similitude of God and His Son.
Extra Resources: Come Follow Me – For Home and Church: Doctrine and Covenants 2025 // Come Follow Me – For Home and Church: Old Testament 2026 // The Red Headed Hostess Guided Studies
History
We dove BIG into history this winter and we loved it! We finished two units this winter. Our first unit was about ANCIENT GREECE AND ANCIENT ASIA. Topics we learned about were:
- Ancient Greece: Minoans & Mycenaeans
- Greek City-States
- Daily Life in Ancient Greece
- The Olympics & the Persian Wars
- Ancient Greek Philosophy, Science, Math, Astronomy, & History
- Alexander the Great
- Introduction to Ancient China
- Ancient China: Dynasties & Art
- Daily Life in Ancient China
- Ancient China: Religion & Philosophy
- Genghis & Kublai Khan
- Ancient India
Then we raced forward in time during our second unit to study VIKINGS, EXPLORATION & PRE-COLUMBIAN AMERICA. This was such a fun unit! Topics we learned about were:
- LOTS about the Vikings
- Marco Polo
- Motivations for Exploration
- LOTS about Christopher Columbus
- John and Sebastian Cabot & Vasco Nunez de Balboa
- Other Explorers
- Pre-Columbian America
- The Mayan Civilization
- The Aztec Empire
- The Incan Empire
- Conquistadors
Curriculum: The Good and the Beautiful History Year 2
Science
For the most part, we took a break from science this winter to focus on history. BUT we were going so well, we ended up starting our science unit a little earlier than we expected! We started a SAFETY unit – which is mostly review for the older kids, but it’s such a good review and an easy unit which is nice! We are not quite done with our unit yet, but the topics we’ve learned about so far are:
- What Is Safety?
- Fire Safety
- Water Safety
- Electricity Safety
- Natural Disaster Safety
Curriculum: The Good and the Beautiful Science: Safety
World Watch News
This has been a new addition this year and we have LOVED it!
Presidents Day
We did celebrate Presidents Day! We read a story about George Washington and had our traditional johnny cakes! They are so yummy!
JACOB – Eighth Grade
Language Arts
Jacob is enjoying his more relaxed year of language arts. This winter he finished his book study on The Touch of Magic by Lorena A. Hickok and The Story of My Life by Helen Keller.
He also finished his book study on Abraham Lincoln by Wilbur Fisk Gordy and Two Noble Lives by Laura E. Richards.
Here is what he worked on this winter:
- Interjections
- Literary Devices
- Handwriting
- Writing Short Answer Responses
- Prefaces and Forwards
- Spelling
- Homophones
- Vocabulary
- Titles of Books and Songs
- Editing
- Plural Nouns
- Challenging Pronunciation Vocabulary
- Possessives
- Family Relationships
- Commonly Confused Words
In writing, he wrote:
- Response Essay
In art, Jacob studied:
- Lithography
- Drew a Sunset
In geography, he studied:
- Kentucky
- The White House and Washington DC
- Greece and Athens
Curriculum: The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Book Studies: The Touch of Magic and the Story of My Life // The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Book Studies: Abraham Lincoln
Pre-Algebra
Jacob continues to do amazing with his math. We have also officially entered the phase that if he needs extra help, I definitely have to look back through the lesson to give myself a reminder! This winter he studied:
- Linear Functions
- Slope as Rate of Change
- Calculating Slope
- Slope-Intercept Form
- Writing Linear Equations Using Slope and a Point
- Writing Linear Equations Using Multiple Points
- Proportional Relationships
- Graphing from Standard Form
- Standard Form to Slope-Intercept Form
- Linear Models
- Parallel and Perpendicular Lines
- Solving Equations with Radicals
- Solving Equations with Exponents
- The Pythagorean Theorem
- Using the Pythagorean Theorem
- Distance on a Coordinate Plane
- Parts and Wholes with Fractions
- Fractions, Decimals, and Percents
- Parts and Wholes with Percents
- Percent Increase and Decrease
- Calculating Interest
- Simple Probability
- Compound Probability
- Ratios and Unit Rates
- Proportions
- Measurement Systems
- Unit Conversions and Unit Multipliers
- Scales and Scale Factors
- Basic Geometry Terms
- Angle Relationships and Transversals
- Properties of Triangles
- Polygons and Interior Angles
- Congruence and Similarity in Figures
Curriculum: The Good and the Beautiful Pre-Algebra
Typing
Jacob’s been doing typing as an elective and has been doing really well with it!
Resource: Typing Club
Watercolor Pencils
Jacob continues to enjoy art and learning how to use watercolor pencils. He is almost done with this course. And I continue to love how it combines teaching, art appreciation and history, and individual projects. This winter he focused on:
- Tertiary Colors
- Complementary Color Pairs
- Neutral Colors
- Color Tints
Resource: Artistic Pursuits Art Core 2: Painting with Watercolor Pencils
Piano
Jacob continues to do well in piano! He participated in our family Christmas recital and did beautifully.
Resource: Faber Piano Adventures: Level 3A
Music Appreciation
Jacob LOVES this music appreciation! I love how it dives into the composers, beautiful music, and the history of hymns. This winter he mostly studied Haydn and Mozart. This winter he studied:
- “‘Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus”
- Haydn & the Surprise Symphony
- Haydn & the Toy Symphony
- Let There Be Light!
- “Nearer, My God, to Thee”
- Mozart: The Wonder Child
- Mozart’s Serenades
- “Master, the Tempest Is Raging”
- Schumann & the Spring Symphony
- Clara’s Piano
Curriculum: The Good and the Beautiful Music Appreciation 1
Creative Writing
Jacob continues to plug away at his creative writing course. It is definitely a slow and steady kind of course. But his writing is beautiful, so it is working its magic!
Curriculum: The Good and the Beautiful Creative Writing Notebook 2
Swimming
All three of the kids wanted to add swimming as a physical elective this year. They have all progressed so much over the last year!
SARAH – Fifth Grade
Language Arts
Sarah is doing really well with her language arts! This winter she studied:
- Commas in a Series
- Homophones
- Hymns
- Dependent Clauses and Subordinating Conjuctions
- Editing
- Idioms and Context Clues
- “Abide with Me”
- Prepositional Phrases
- Quotation Punctuation
- “Amazing Grace”
- Commas with Dependent Clauses
- Sentence Diagramming
- “All Creatures of Our God and King”
- Capitalization with Titles
- Parts of Speech
- Antonyms and Vocabulary
- It’s vs Its
- Imperative Sentences
- Commas in Dates
- Diagramming Commands
As I mentioned last quarter, there is a big emphasis on spelling and writing in this level. In spelling, she studied:
- Contractions
- Commonly Confused Words
- They’re / Their / There
- Number Prefixes
- Words with AL
- IE Words
- Spelling Rule: Consonant + LE
- Words with Silent U
- Spelling Rule: Drop the E
- It’s / Its
- Plural Nouns
- Changing Y to I
- Words with QU
- Words with EI
- Spelling Rule: Words that End with VE or UE
In writing, she wrote:
- Rewriting Awkward, Wordy Sentences
- Being a Light When You Write!
- Colors
- Personification and Simile
- Writing a Thank You Note
- Writing Hymn Lyrics
- Well-Chosen Verbs
- Writing a Book Review
- Writing about the Dominican Republic
- Words Other than “Said”
- Dialogue in Fiction Writing
- Types of Conflict in Fiction
- Starting a Story
- Writing an Opening
In geography, she studied:
- Monhegan Island
- Islands of the World
- Cuba
- The Bahamas
- The Caribbean Islands
- Wildlife in the Caribbean
- Haiti
- The Black Forest
- Biomes
- Forest Biomes
- Taiga Forests
Sarah read:
- Marjorie
- The Clockmaker’s Son by Jenny Phillips
In art, Sarah studied:
- Watercolored a Lighthouse
- Watercolored a Sea Turtle
- Watercolored a Black Forest Farmhouse
Curriculum: The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts: Level 5
Math
Sarah is FLYING through math! She finished Level 4 (which she was ecstatic about) and is not getting deep into Level 5. In Level 4, she studied:
- Weight: Metric System
- Coordinate Planes
- Estimating Answers: Multiplication and Division
- Mental Math: Multiplication
- Long Division: Two-Digit Divisor
- Probability
- Multiplying Decimals by Whole Numbers
- Mental Math: Short Division
- Dividing Decimals by Whole Numbers
- Average and Mean
- Median, Mode, and Range
- Percents
In Level 5, this winter Sarah studied:
- Number Patterns
- Factors of Prime and Composite Numbers
- Divisibility Strategies
- Prime Factorization
- Exponents
- Multiplying and Dividing by Powers of 10
- Single, Double, and Triple Line Graphs
- Bar Graphs and Double Bar Graphs
- Fractions and Percents
- Long Division with Remainders: Checking Division
- Quotents with Zero
- Short Division
- Order of Operations with Exponents
- Multiplication Properties and Missing Numbers
- Perfect Squares to 144
- Square Roots
- Finding the Mean
- Median, Mode, and Range
- Estimating Products and Quotients Using Area
- Perfect Squares to 225
- Converting Units of Length
- Positive and Negative Numbers
- Graphing Ordered Pairs
- Identifying and Drawing Geometric Figures
Curriculum: The Good and the Beautiful Math 4 // The Good and the Beautiful Math 5
Read Alouds and Handwriting
Sarah’s cursive is beautiful but I am failing on convincing any of my kiddos to use that as their “regular” handwriting. We did FINALLY finish reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix by J.K. Rowling. And now we are reading The King’s Fifth by Scott O’Dell which has been a fun read and went perfectly with our history unit on exploration and the conquistadors.
Resource: The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting: Level 5
Typing
Sarah kind of hit a wall with her typing program. Her typing is really good and so we decided she can be done!
Resource: Typing Club
Drawing
Sarah FINISHED her drawing elective! Art is such an amazing gift and I am so glad all of my kids enjoy is so much.
Resource: Draw Vintage Images: Level Five
Piano
Sarah continues to enjoy piano and is doing very well. She did wonderfully in our Christmas piano recital.
Resource: Faber Piano Adventures: Level 2B
Music Appreciation
Sarah and Jacob are doing the same music appreciation elective, but doing it independently. Sarah really seems to be enjoying it. This winter Sarah studied:
- Haydn & the Toy Symphony
- Let There Be Light!
- “Nearer, My God, to Thee”
- Mozart: The Wonder Child
- Mozart’s Serenades
- “Master, the Tempest Is Raging”
- Schumann & the Spring Symphony
- Clara’s Piano
- The Schumanns: Scenes from Childhood
Curriculum: The Good and the Beautiful Music Appreciation 1
Creative Writing
Sarah is doing amazing with her creative writing. Her descriptive writing is really incredible. This winter, she focused on writing exercises and story starters.
Curriculum: The Good and the Beautiful Creative Writing Notebook 1
Swimming
Sarah moved up into a new level with swimming and is doing so well! It was great to get back in the pool!
BENJAMIN – Third Grade
Language Arts
Benjamin has worked so hard. He is moving at such a great pace in his language arts and his reading has really come along. I am very proud of him. This winter he studied:
- Decoding Words
- Common and Proper Nouns
- Sight Words
- Heteronyms
- Reading Words with OO
- Reading Words with EAR
- Reading Words with EY
- Contractions
- Reading Practice with Poetry
- Spelling Words with EY
- Reading Words with Soft C and G
- Phonograms Review: EW, OW, OU
- Reading Words Where S Says /z/
- PH
- The Subject of a Sentence
- Reading Words with TCH
- Prefixes and Suffixes
- Spelling Rule: C or K at the Beginning or Middle of Words
- Verbs
- O Can Say the Short U Sound
- UI and UE
In writing, Ben:
- How to Write a Story
- Narrated 2 Short Stories
- Using Complete Sentences to Write Answers to Questions
In geography, he studied:
- Maps
- Our World is a Blessing
- North America
- Map Grids
- Oceans
- The Equator
Curriculum: The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts Level 2
Math
Ben continues to do really well with math. This winter, he learned:
- Counting and Writing in the Thousands
- Subtraction with Regrouping
- Place Value to the Thousands
- Adding and Subtracting 10 and 100 in the Thousands
- Missing Numbers in Addition Problems
- Expanded Form to the Thousands
- Estimating with Subtraction
- Dividing into Groups
- Dividing into Two Equal Groups with and without One Left Over
- Rounding with Addition
- Adding 3 Two-Digit Numbers
- Polygons
- Fractions
- Multiplication
- Weight
- Two-Step Story Problems
- Multiplication Story Problems
- Data: Creating a Venn Diagram
- Tally Charts and Pictographs
- Tables and Bar Graphs
- Plotting and Interpreting Data
- Finding the Median
- Centimeters, Meters, and Kilometers
- Gallons, Quarts, Pints, and Cups
- Cups, Half Cups, Tablespoons, Teaspoons, and Half Teaspoons
- Comparing and Ordering Volumes in Liters and Mililiters
- Addition and Subtraction Measurement Problems
- Identifying Parts of a Set
Curriculum: The Good and the Beautiful Math 2
Read Alouds and Handwriting
Ben is really enjoying learning cursive and his read alouds. We finished Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight which is such a sweet classic. We read Mountain Born by Elizabeth Yates which is a quick, beautiful read. And we are so close to finishing The Railway Children by E. Nesbit – which is another favorite.
Curriculum: The Good and the Beautiful Handwriting Level 3
Spelling
Spelling was an unexpected subject that we added last autumn for Benjamin. This winter we have been pretty hit or miss with it though. There are times when I don’t feel like he needs it and others times when I do. We’ve yet to find a great time to do it so haven’t been consistent. I will need to problem solve that out this spring.
Curriculum: All About Spelling Level 1
Drawing
Drawing is coming along for Ben!
Resource: Draw Vintage Images: Level Three
Piano
Ben has really turned a corner with piano this winter! I am so happy for BOTH of us! He was so excited to be a part of his first recital this Christmas and he did a wonderful job!
Resource: Faber Piano Adventures Level Primer
Cooking
This has been a fun elective for Ben and I. He really enjoys helping me with dinner at least once a week.
Poetry
Another great elective for Benjamin has been poetry. This was the only subject we didn’t get quite as far this winter as we had hoped. But we read poems about fireflies, flies, and spiders. And we made a firefly suncatcher!
Resource: The Good and the Beautiful Poetry Parties for Littles: Insects and Spiders
LYDIA – First Grade
All Aboard the Animal Train
Lydia’s school took a big backseat this winter. The poor little thing was just sick so much. It felt like it was either BIG sicknesses like influenza, pneumonia, or RSV, or just little colds. She also had some seizures in December and so all of that impacts our schooling. We are so glad we have the flexibility to give her the rest that she needs and the support when she is up for it.
Curriculum: My Father’s World: All Aboard the Animal Train
Koala Crates
We’ve almost finished all of Lydie’s Koala Crates!
Therapies
Therapies are the one thing we really try and stay consistent with as long as Lydie is feeling up to it. She continues with all of her therapies – Phsyical, Speech, Occupational, Music, Horse, and Massage. Her speech therapist is actually starting to teach Lydie letters and begin the process to try and teach her how to read. I am on a steep learning curve but am really interested in how things progress. We will see!
Final Thoughts
Winter is also a sweet season in the schoolhouse. I love the slower pace and this winter was no different. I am so proud of these kids and all that they do and are learning. They are the best.
