A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

Last week I needed to find some old family stories, so I spent an hour or so looking over the very first blog I opened (now archived and private).  Rose Red and Pixie experimenting with natural dyes in our front yard It is always so fun to see the old pictures and read the old stories. L-R:  Belle, Nature Angel, Genevieve (the dog), Pixie, Rose Red, and Super Star.  There had been some serious mud play that day! I found one post about our homeschool from 2009. At that time we had 6 little girls ages 9 and under--the newest (Little Princess) being absolutely as new as possible. Little Princess--just days old I wanted to quote myself, but I've been searching for the post (and you'd think I could find it given Little Princess's birthdate) for half an hour, and I can't find it again.  I'm thinking perhaps Little Princess was a few months older than I thought. Anyway . . . It was a busy season in our home, and I wrote about how the previous...

Our homeschool group puts together a yearbook each school year.  My kids pore over the old ones day in and day out, never tiring of looking at themselves and their friends and remembering the amazing experiences our homeschool group offers us. One delightful feature we love is the opportunity to make "personal pages."  These are pages that appear only in our yearbook that hold our family's personal memories.   Each family gets 2 pages included in the price of the yearbook . . . but we opt to pay the extra fee for extra pages and see more of ourselves. :) This year Pixie made our pages--selected the photos, selected the page layouts, put them together, and hit the "print ready" button. The lack of captions keeps us talking and talking about the pictures to keep the stories alive. This year's Not-Back-to-School picnic is in late August, and we get our yearbook then. We're so excited!!!!

My teen daughters and I had a delightful girls night watching Trust Fund from Mapelle Films .  The companion book, Love Was Near , is a friendly way to invite teen girls to think more deeply about the issues raised by the film. I'm a huge fan of Christian films, and Trust Fund can stand proudly among them.  My girls and I were engaged with the characters and the plot quickly. Reese is a darling young adult who is trying to stand independently, but she's not so good at it yet.  She has a hard time budgeting, finishing work, choosing wisely, and understanding that the people who love her truly do have her best interests at heart.  Her dad is head of a successful publishing company, and her older sister works responsibly at his side. It doesn't take long for clashes between flighty-but-well-meaning Reese and her family to begin.  Her story is the prodigal son retold with a modern and relevant twist. And Reese's story goes beyond the forgiving welcome h...

There was a little girl Who had a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, She was very, very good. And when she was bad, she was horrid! --Mother Goose This poem could have been written specifically for my curly-topped Rose Red.  Sir Walter Scott and I have recited it for and about her since she was a toddler, and it applies just as well today as it did back then. She is a young woman of extremes--extreme opinions, extreme emotions, extreme questions, extreme behaviors, extreme judgments, and so forth and so on. Her next birthday will be her 18th, and she is chomping at the bit to get out and be independent . . . but she hides from independence at the same time. She's definitely matured this year, and I am curious to see how much more she will mature in the year to come.  Will she be ready for the independence she craves and plans to claim in less than a year? Academically this was a tough, tough year for us both....

This was Pixie's 9th grade year--her first year of high school! Before beginning this year, she and I had a number of tête-à-têtes about her dreams, goals, wishes, and plans. Over the year, she grew and changed. That's okay . . . that's good! She's still interested in graduating early, but she's not interested in getting a cosmetology license. She's still interested in photography, but she's fallen in love with dance.  She says, "I love photography, but it will always be there.  I can take pictures no matter how old I get.  Right now I love dance, and there's only a small window of time for me to be a dancer.  I want to focus on dance now and turn to photography later." Seems kind of wise for 15. So we're doing what we can to help her dance. Academically, she had a challenging year, and she rose to the challenge with grace and determination. She receives the following credits for her first year of high school: ...

My Super Star is knee-deep in figuring out how she'd like to be defined and trying to make herself into the person she wants to be. It's a hard phase. And I look forward to her letting this one go in favor of embracing her true self. Some of the truths that I can see are: She has an empathetic soul. She is sensitive. She is smart. She is beautiful. She knows how to work hard. She is creative. She is a fighter. She did a lot of interesting work this year--her 8th grade year. Math Super Star has struggled with math for quite some time.  Her math issues are not as pronounced as Rose Red's, but they have caused her no end of frustration, embarrassment, and pain.  However, she has settled quite well into Saxon math, and she worked double lessons in order to finish 7/6 this year and start 8/7.  She's really getting it now, and she's feeling so much better than she's ever felt before about math. Literature Super Star read and narrated a variety ...

I've devoted this summer to teacher inservice. Oh, I'm taking care of the kids and all, but I'm doing a lot of studying of the inspiring kind. We're kind of past the rawest, worst part of our most recent adoption journey, and though we have years of healing ahead, we're done bleeding. (Mostly) Because I'm not mopping up bodily fluids and emotional messes constantly, I have a little bit more energy to think than I used to. And I'm thinking about the flow of our school days. I love beauty. I grew up in Southern California . . . sometimes I miss it so much I hurt. Especially natural beauty. So I tend to gravitate toward Waldorf/Montessori/Charlotte Mason types of inspiration. Seriously, have you seen the gorgeousness of homeschools that use these plans? Mine doesn't look like that so much. Or maybe it does . . . Anyway, I've been rereading some of my favorite Amanda Blake Soule ( Soulemama ) books because they...

Theo + Belle = Love For record-keep purposes, this was Belle's 7th grade year.  She's an absolutely brilliant girl who couldn't care less about her incredible brain.  She can do anything she's asked to do, but she will only do what she's asked.  She has zero ambition or drive to excel. This sounds negative. But when I think about this quality of hers, I'm more inclined to call it contentment.  She's simply content to be where she is when she is. And she's a perfectionist.   She's terribly sweet and gentle and kind and stubborn and quiet and charming and smart. Math She completed Saxon Math 8/7 without any trouble whatsoever.  According to the Saxon scope and sequence, she could move directly to Algebra 1, but she's not in a hurry, so she asked to do Algebra 1/2 this coming year and save Algebra for high school. OK. Literature Belle read and narrated 3 assigned books: Invincible Louisa by Cornelia Meigs The Windy Hill by Corn...