Our National Geographic Explorers year was almost a non-thematic year, as the children went in different academic directions.
Hal IV and Chase told me that they wanted to study separate things in school that year, but we still had a loose theme. Hal IV liked geography A LOT. He was and still is the expert of the world in our family.
I put a little bit of a geography theme together, but we didn't do a lot with it, which is why I can't remember what we did that year. EPIC Adventures are a framework for our memories, and we didn't have much of an adventure that year.
Our dining room wall reads: Explorers of the World
I have some things the kids put together, like Hal IV's country match game, and the binder atlases and other map items for their binders. Without a theme song and other parts of the adventure, I don't remember a lot of what we did together, nor did I take enough photos to jog my memory.
Here are a few--
Amber and Jasmyn were high school age and wanted to try out a local charter school. They didn't really attend the school, but we worked with a facilitator to set up their classes, borrowed courses, (remember French in Action videos?), and books from the school, and enrolled the two girls in the local college. They earned parts in college production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and received college credit for it too.
After one semester of college and two semesters of the charter school, both girls decided to come back home. I remember Jasmyn telling me that reading a textbook & answering questions at the end of the chapter was pointless and boring. She said she learned much more at home.
We had one other (almost) non-thematic school year a few years later, but after two such years we kept to EPIC Adventures and never looked back.
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