Homeschool Year Recap-- Part 2, Projects and Work

Well, we all know it can't be all nature hikes and museum tours.  (Although, wouldn't that be nice?)  At some point, we have to stay home and hit the books!  We did our fair share of that this past year, too.  We finished our fourth year in My Father's World curriculum, which covered our history, science, music, some art, Bible, and literature.
We toured history from the age of exploration to the discovery of gold in California, including much study of our nation's founding and early history, and completing Tennessee state reports for three different grade levels.

Writing names with a feather quill and blackberry juice

In science, we covered zoology using Answers in Genesis material and botany using Apologia material.  I'm going to guess that the kids preferred the study of animals, but I really, really liked our study of plant life more.

Earthworm science (No earthworms were harmed in the production of this experiment!)

Flower anatomy using clay, construction paper, and chenille wires (aka pipe cleaners)

We listened to Schubert and Mendelssohn for music study and integrated art with other subjects whenever possible.

Sketching George Washington

Sketching wildlife

 We also read some really good books together, including Almost Home by Wendy Lawton, Madeleine Takes Command by Ethel Brill, Bound for Oregon by Jean Van Leeuwen, Mary Jones and Her Bible by Mary Ropes and Christopher Wright, Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates, The Boy in the Alamo by Margaret Cousins, and several others.
We also made time for math with RightStart, Life of Fred, and VideoText, creative writing with Writing Strands and Just Write, and spelling with Spelling Power.
That just about covered all the bases!
The kids were also involved in various activities:  basketball in the winter for Ellie and Drew, ballet for Marian and Ellie from fall through spring, fall football and spring soccer for Drew, and Awana for everyone.
We had a busy year!  Summarizing it all in one post like this makes me feel like we really accomplished a lot!