A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

I felt so left out . . . so alone in that room full of good, kind women.  I was at a baby shower.  It was fun--filled with women whom I admire and enjoy.  In greeting me, one of them asked me how Friday night's homeschool dance went.  I answered enthusiastically.  Another woman asked me questions about the group that sponsored the dance, curious about what a homeschooling life is like.  Somehow as I answered, I felt the first woman withdraw from me, and before I finished my sentence, she redirected the conversation and closed the door to me. I shook it off.  Perhaps I was wrong.  If my friends can ask me questions about homeschooling, then certainly I can ask questions about their public school experiences.  I can be just as interested in their lives as they are in mine.  That's what friends do. I listened politely to their animated discussion of the best sports teams to join, which ones to avoid, how to find the best private lesson...

Homeschooling seems to be a lot about freedom--mostly the freedom to throw off the constraints of traditional education and find one's own way.  Everywhere I turn I can find voices encouraging me to think outside the box, get outside of 4 walls, work outside of a formal plan.  I've listened and been blessed by such encouragement.  Those voices kept me going through the early years of homeschooling when trying to do anything traditional or formal would have killed me and all of the kids. But suddenly (or perhaps it has been slowly) we're all ready for a more traditional/formal approach.  My oldest asked me to put together "a high school plan like what my friends are doing in public school."  My next 3 have absolutely refused to do any more math with Life of Fred or Khan Academy or online games or Mathematicians are People, Too and are clutching traditional textbooks and workbooks to their chests with sighs of pleasure.  My next one has requested that I ...

M12 is a 7th grader this year--at least as much as any of my kids fit into the classic grade system.  I'm finding that the materials I want to use for her will last for about 2 years, so for the most part this is what her 7th and 8th grade years will look like . . . unless something dramatic happens. State Required Basics: Reading :  read and journal daily from her choice of a list of "great books." Language Arts: Intermediate Language Lessons This is one of the 2 year books because it has approximately 200 lessons in it, and I think we'll only have 100-120 "regular" school days this year.  (Our remaining 60-80 days will be field trips, nature outings, science club meetings, etc) Rod and Staff spelling 4 and 5  Remedial work here.  She's improved a lot in the past year with Spelling Wisdom , but I can see that she needs a formal review of some of the rules that will help her make generalizations she hasn't made on her own. Rod and Staff p...

This is a terrifying and huge plan for my girl.  Her work will run the gamut from building up remedial elementary skills to challenging college-level thinking.  She and I have spent a hundred or more hours working on it. If she does not do it all this year, that's okay.  I know she's capable of the thinking and learning part, but the study skills and writing could do her in.  If so, we will slow down on the electives and allow her two years to complete them. She has a couple of elective subjects that do not seem necessary, but I am assigning them to her because they will allow her to explore some strengths that I see in her but she does not see in herself.  I'm hoping she'll get an honest chance to develop a passion or two that could bring her a lifetime of joy.  If not . . . at least seeds will have been planted . . . to develop or die as her life plays out. State Required Basics: Reading :  read and journal daily from her choice of a list of ...

Beatrix Potter: The Complete Tales Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan Mathematicians Are People, Too by Luetta and Wilber Riemer The Remarkable and Very True Story of Lucy and Snowcap by H.M. Bouwman The Complete Peterkin Papers by Lucretia P. Hale A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle Milly-Molly-Mandy by Joyce Lankester Brisley Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes Caroline and Her Kettle Named Maud by Miriam E Mason Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie Cappyboppy by Bill Peet The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes My Father's Dragon by Ruth Gannon Stiles Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder Usborne Stories from Around the World retold by Heather Amery Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski January's Sparrow by Patricia Polac...

Slowly but surely I am setting up our school year to come.  It is harder than it has ever been before--because there are more kids?  because I'm pregnant and tired?  because the kids' needs are diversifying?  I'm not sure . . . I only know that inspiration has come slowly. But it has come. I've been puzzling over how to handle history and science for my older/middle 2.  I have plans in place for E14 and M12, but S12 and J10 have been tricky.  These are usually subjects that we work on in a group with me as leader, but I will be out of commission for the whole middle of the school year, so the kids need to be able to work independently.  I've spent hours thinking, researching, wondering, praying over what to do for my girls.  There are dozens of wonderful options, but that magical balance between affordable and doable remained elusive for many weeks. One afternoon last week I was reading with H4.  She was in need of some mommy-time, and ...

I've probably written this theme into the ground this week, but this is a place for me to process my thoughts along our educational journey, and boredom is what we're learning about. I'm learning to be comfortable with letting my kids get bored. Way back before I had kids, my good friend had a couple, and she earned a little pocked money by babysitting a couple more.  She said that the kids she watched were exhausting to be around all day not because they were bad kids--they weren't--but because they were used to having their every moment planned and they had no idea how to entertain themselves.  My friend told me that she cultivated boredom in her kids so that they would learn how to make good choices and know how to use the time God gives us all. I've always remembered that bit of good advice. But it hasn't always been easy to follow.  When the kids say, "Mom, I'm bored!" I always answer that I have a chore that needs to be done, and the ...

I came home from my first appointment with a midwife (there IS a happy, healthy baby growing within!) to find my kids outside . . . just kind of pottering about. And I feel so very thankful. It's what I've been waiting for since May. I've had to make the computer completely off limits and give them almost no direction for how to spend their days for a month for them to remember the joys of doing Nothing out-of-doors. “What I like doing best is Nothing." "How do you do Nothing," asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time. "Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say, 'Oh, Nothing,' and then you go and do it. It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering." "Oh!" said Pooh.” ―A.A Milne, Winnie the Pooh  July has just begun.  Originally I had intensive remedial sp...

I have officially given up my summer plans. That stack of 50+ library books all about plants--project books, history books, herbals, recipe books, etc.--all returned. Well, except one.  I still have 2 weeks to hold on to Apologia's Exploring Creation with Botany , and I can't quite bring myself to return it early just in case the opportunity to do a lesson or two presents itself.  (It is hard to give up!) We haven't done one day of sketching. We've only managed two nature outings. It turns out that our local lake only allows swimming at a certain beach and only during certain hours of the day, and there's an entry fee--per person! We're not even going on our blueberry picking outing with Daddy this morning because we had a new church family over for dinner last night, and the evening was so fun that we all stayed up until hours past all of our bedtimes, and we're all exhausted and sleeping in, and it's raining this morning anyway. We spend ou...