Ok, so I definitely am over 200 posts. As this blog has evolved over the years, I’ve deleted a few, BUT, this is published post 200 for The Nurtured Bee!
Every year, unavoidably, I end up taking a writing hiatus. I tell myself I’m going to batch write blogs, schedule them out, so this doesn’t happen. Every year it does. Because like my social media, I am TERRIBLE at prepping content ahead. My life is day by day, minute by minute. My content is a mix of my teacher things and our real life. I can’t pre-write, or pre-photograph, real life, a month in advance.
To celebrate 200 posts, I thought I’d share top posts from the last year, and top downloads. At the end I’ll share little update and some summer things!
Top Posts:
Enhancing Student Essays Through Literary Analysis
Family Morning Prayer Poster
Get the Wiggles Out
From Hustle to Grace
Faith Doesn’t Mean it Doesn’t Suck
Top Downloads:
TNB Book Report
TNB Summer Classic Bingo
Summer Activities
Teaching Literature with Faith
Home Zoo
Currently, I am in the thick of evaluation season, and it is my favorite! It fills my cup more than I can say to connect with all of my families, seeing all of the fun they’ve had through the year, and the amazing work they’ve been doing.
Last summer I took on a part time job working for Hope Inspire Love working on their social media and content. I get to work with a dear friend who does the graphics, and the most fantastic team at HIL.
We welcomed a new sweet doggo to the chaos of the Knaub Home Zoo a few weeks ago. This sweet lady is a rescue, as she and her brother, were surrendered back to Gabby by her owner, due to unexpected personal issues. In the mean time, darling little Rosie has been hanging with my dear friend, and breeder, Gabby, waiting to find her forever home the last few months.
Athena has wanted a smaller, female dog, so she could baby it, and name it Rosie to go with Samwise, since we got Samwise 5 years ago. She has NEVER let us live it down that when we got a 2nd dog, it was another big boy.
We met Rosie a few weeks ago when we went down for evaluations and I just knew she’d be a good fit for our crew. She turned 3 in February, is super chill, is the absolute snuggliest lovebug, and has the perfect personality to join the feral hobbits.
BRAVE 2026 tickets are LIVE! I am so excited to be speaking at Brave once again this year. Last summer I spoke and had an incredible time. It was so awesome in fact, I joined the Made2Homeschool Core Contributor team, so I could be part of M2H all year long! This year I’m back and super excited to be share the stage with some other incredible speakers. Join me for “Why Whole Books Matter in a Fragmented World.”
2026-2027 school year classes are also live, and filling. Brit Lit was overflowing this year, so we opened a 2nd section for the coming school year and they are both filling again! I have revamped and updated Cinematic Stories for this coming school year and I am over the moon excited to get started in the fall. Worlds Unraveled has also gotten a little bit of an update with 2 new books for the fall semester. Find all of the details for classes at TNB Live Classes.
I have been writing this whole post on the couch, recovering from surgery #3. Those of you who have been around for a while may remember my post from a number of years ago What You Didn’t See about my postpartum experience with having a prolapse. After having done pelvic floor therapy a few years ago, last year I went to the doctor for unrelated issues, that precipitated my hysterectomy. At the same time, I was supposed to have a bladder sling and this particular prolapse corrected. Last summer, the hysterectomy, bladder sling, and pelvic floor reconstruction were done, but the surgeon (we still don’t know why), chose not to complete the prolapse correction, the thing that I ACTUALLY really needed and wanted done.
This Spring I met with a new surgeon, at PSU Hershey, who was absolutely incredible. She was unbelievably kind, compassionate, and wonderful. The entire team took the best care of me last week, where Dr. Long went in and completed the prolapse fix that should have been done last summer to begin with. Though quite sore and tender, I was able to go home the same night! We had planned for me to stay overnight at the hospital, but I passed all of my discharge checklist, and felt great! It’s touchy walking as you can imagine, I can’t lift more than 10lbs, and I’ve been living on the couch, but otherwise I feel fantastic! I am ready for this whole experience to be behind me.
The other day I was sitting here thinking, “What am I going to do with my kids all summer?” And then I remembered that I literally wrote an entire summer activity plan to answer that question! Each week has a different “theme”/focus, with linked Pinterest boards of ideas that go with that theme. All you have to do is pick what you want to do. I updated the plan to have Week 1, 2, 3, etc…. instead of dated weeks to make it more evergreen.
My TBR-
-I am working through my own Summer Classic Bookish Bingo! I’m reading Sherlock right now.
–The Enchanted Hour The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction
–Powers & Thrones A New History of the Middle Ages
–The House of the Scorpion
–Self Help from the Middle Ages
The girls and I are getting ready to get plants in the ground for our butterfly garden! It has been a few years since we’ve really had an established pollinator/butterfly garden, and our goal is to be a monarch way station again! Even cooler- we are going to be helping some friends get started as well. You can check out my plans, checklist, plant lists, etc… right HERE. You’ll find a list of host plants: what plants butterflies lay their eggs on and the caterpillars eat, nectar plants: the flowers butterflies drink nectar from, Monarch way station guidelines, and 2 different garden plans, that are each 100sq ft, per recommended waystation sizing. The gardens focus on Black Swallowtails and Monarchs, with space for host plants for other butterflies you choose! All information comes from the Monarch Waystation site, or PSU Master Gardeners. I’m really hoping we’ll be able to tag Monarchs this year as well.
I have lots of plans for the summer including my year-long curriculum companion to go with Dan Jones’ Powers & Thrones. This curriculum includes a teacher book and student book, Core 4 assignments for each semester, and an entire role-playing-game that is Dungeons & Dragons adjacent, allowing students to LIVE history like never before. Peep the pic to the left for a little sneak peak. As you can imagine, this is a bear of a project that I have been working on for the last 6 months between regular teaching, life, and such. I am so thankful for my friend Brandon from M2H that has been giving me a bit of help here and there with formatting, feedback, and structure. My goal is to have this all done by the end of July so families can have it ready for the start of their school year!
Speaking of curriculum, you may notice that Shop page has disappeared. Truthfully, it was a lot to maintain, and I am not savy enough to figure out how to set up automatic downloads with purchases so it was quite time consuming. At this point, I have all of my curriculum and resources for sale on Teachers Pay Teachers! Same name, same resources, same prices, easier process for everyone. As a little sneak peak ahead- I will be throwing a store sale in July. If you’d like to be notified of that, you can follow my store to get those updates.
As ALWAYS, for the most up to date and behind the scenes fun, I am most active over on Instagram @thenurturedbee.
The Nurtured Bee 