My Father’s World Exploring Countries and Cultures

This was our 4th year to homeschool! This school year I was so excited to start the family cycle in My Father’s World curriculum. All of the kids studied the same thing on the majority of their subjects. This made my job so much easier! 

The first year in the cycle is called “Exploring Countries and Cultures”. We studied the continents and many different countries. As we visited each country, we learned about different ecosystems, learned different cultures, tried some local food, and read biographies about missionaries who have served in that area. We also read through the book of Matthew this school year.

For math, Clark and Callie switched to Teaching Textbooks. We love Teaching Textbooks!!! I was looking for something that would foster independent work and this does just that. Even better, it automatically grades their work. It is awesome. My goal is to get all the kids on it eventually. Brody and Katy did the Rapid Recall System by Little Big Steps. 

For English, we used Language Lessons for Today grade 2 and 3. For Spelling we used Spelling by Sound and Structure by Rod & Staff for 2nd grade and Spelling Power for 3rd grade. For cursive, we had a hard time finding the correct fit. We ended up changing 3 times! In the end, we found success with Handwriting Without Tears. My 3rd graders were halfway through the book by the end of the year and writing some independently.

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Meet my kids! Brody and Callie are in 2nd grade and Clark and Katy are in 3rd grade. ⬇️

We spent the first half of our year in this area. In January, we moved to our living area for various reasons. But, I loved having a dedicated space! ⬇️

We started by visiting the USA 🇺🇸 and then we were off to to Mexico 🇲🇽! For every country we visited, the kids had to pretend to fly there. ⬇️

Once they were there, they had their passport stamped and their US currency exchanged to pesos. ⬇️

Many of the countries sent us information. This jumbo coloring book was from Mexico. ⬇️

We made a piñata. ⬇️







The kids all love Mexican food! ⬇️

Early in the school year, we did some major traveling. We spent a total of 1 1/2 months away from home traveling all over the US and eastern Canada. We took our travel trailer as we accompanied my husband for work travel. During that time, we didn’t do actual schoolwork, but we had plenty of amazing field trips! ⬇️

Our home away from home ⬆️

Oklahoma↕️

Pioneer Woman’s ranch ⬆️

Nature Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma ↕️



Looking for animal tracks ⬇️



Cars! ⬆️

South Carolina (Greenville area) ↕️



Prince Edward Island, Canada 🇨🇦 ⬇️

Bar Harbor, Maine ⬇️



Massachusetts ⬇️ 

Virginia ⬇️

By September, we were back from our travels and then we dove back into our homeschool. 

We started out celebrating our Ukraine Day 🇺🇦 on September 3rd. Ukraine wasn’t in the curriculum, but we celebrate this day every year because it is the day we brought Katy and Brody home after adopting them from Ukraine. ⬇️

Beautiful ingredients for Ukrainian Borscht ⬆️

The finished product ⬆️

Buckwheat porridge ⬆️ We weren’t fans of this.

Then we flew to Brazil 🇧🇷, Norway 🇳🇴 , Germany 🇩🇪 and France 🇫🇷 . Somehow I didn’t make meals for Brazil and Germany, oops!

Norwegian 🇳🇴 Fyrstekake⬆️ It was a sweet and savory pie. It had cardamom in it, which we’ve never had before. The kids loved it (even Clark)!

Norwegian 🇳🇴 Brennsnut ⬆️ This was like chicken dumplings without the chicken. The kids weren’t crazy about it.



Brody watching me make French 🇫🇷 crepes. ⬆️⬇️

This was a hit for the kids!

I found a simple pattern for a French beret. The kids loved them!⬆️

We all constructed our own Eiffel Tower. 🇫🇷 ⬆️

Science and Nature. ⬇️

 Here we are examining the tiny life on the “forest” floor.⬆️

Each week we made geography cards. We would learn a new word, write it, illustrate it, write the definition on the back and file it alphabetical in a folder.⬆️

We took many nature walks and illustrated our findings. ↕️









The experiments were so much fun!⬆️

Later in the school year we went to visit my sister in Tampa. While we were there, we noticed these mangrove trees. Little did we know that we would be studying about mangrove trees in school the next week! I thought it was so cool how that worked out. ⬆️

Sting Rays⬆️

We read so many books this year.⬇️

I read many read alouds. I don’t naturally love to read so I’m so grateful that our curriculum schedules it in. We have really enjoyed the books we’ve read. Clark often comes to me weeks afterwards recalling something he remembered from a book. I love this so much!

A friend of mine gave me a lot of things from her classroom when she retired. Among them were book bins and a “telephone” reader. ↕️

The next countries we visited were Kenya 🇰🇪 , Ethiopia 🇪🇹, and Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦. ⬇️

Ethiopian Injera (flat bread), Tibs (meat), Shiro (brown), Alecha (yellow) and Costa (green). ⬆️

African dough animals complete with David Livingstone (Clark’s idea.) We read a biography on David Livingstone. ⬆️

Painting an African mural. ⬆️

We made African drums. ⬆️

My sister serves as a missionary in Africa. She came home in October and we celebrated Christmas early with her. She brought some amazing African gifts. ↕️

For Saudi Arabia we ate hummus.⬆️

All the kids improved in math but Brody had some major breakthroughs this year. It is such a wonderful feeling to watch a child who struggled so hard in a particular area, overcome it. That is one of the biggest blessings of this season in my life. ↕️

We won some amazing Usborne books from my friend  at church. We are so grateful for them!⬇️

During the Christmas season we made gingerbread houses (from scratch...I was pretty impressed with myself 😂). This was so much fun and we are going to have to make this a tradition. ⬇️

We made it to 2019!

2019 brought change for us. In February, I started watching my infant niece. Sometimes it is a challenge getting our school done but we cherish our time with sweet Baylynn. ↕️

The kids started music lessons this year. Clark is playing the guitar, Brody is playing the violin and the girls are playing the piano.⬇️

Every week we played the Geography Game which was included with the curriculum. It has really helped the kids learn many of the countries. I also bought a game called Name that Country. Brody was the first one to win the game.⬇️

For Valentine’s Day, we had a fancy dinner. Everyone made valentines for each family member. Each valentine told one thing we love about the recipient. It was special! ⬇️

Catching a flight ✈️ to India 🇮🇳, China 🇨🇳, Japan 🇯🇵, and Russia 🇷🇺. ⬇️

The kids loved watching an in flight video on YouTube and pretending to fly to each country. They even set up rows of chairs for seats and assigned a pilot and a flight attendant. ⬆️

India 🇮🇳 gave us some beautiful books! We loved reading through them over and over. ↕️

For China 🇨🇳 we went to a Chinese restaurant. We all worked on our chopstick skills.  I needed a break from cooking 😅. ⬇️

The kids learned to play Chinese Checkers. ⬇️

For Japan 🇯🇵 we ordered take-out. The kids tried sushi. They aren’t fans. But, I love it! ⬇️

We tried making some origami. ⬇️

For Russia 🇷🇺 we made a Russian version of Borsch. Most of the kids loved it. ⬇️

We painted Matryoshka dolls. ⬇️



We ended the school year visiting Australia 🇦🇺 and Antarctica 🇦🇶. I didn’t take any pictures. 

This school year was so much fun and I’m so grateful for the amazing opportunity to teach my kids at home. Most days are hard but I wouldn’t trade these moments for anything this world has to offer.