A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

My gosh!  This girl of mine is so cute!  This was the school year that depression took over her life. Any work she did with me or for CAP or for church or for her job was done beautifully well--continuing to prove to me that she is incredibly capable. Most of the work that she had to do independently was procrastinated until it was too late to complete this school year.   We had meeting after meeting after meeting trying to find ways to help her overcome her inertia, but nothing worked.   Finally, we headed to the doctor where she was diagnosed and prescribed meds.   At her follow-up appointment last week, she told the doctor she was feeling much better, and she passed the depression screening. However, she experienced a trauma this summer that she must now process. So she's starting therapy.   We've completed all of the intake forms and meetings, so she should be assigned a therapist and start sessions any time now. With the other high ...

 Well, Sir Walter Scott is finally home after over 40 hours of interrupted travel. Little Princess is still on the trip because even though Part 1 was with Sir Walter Scott, part 2 is with Pixie in Idaho. But Sir Walter Scott had to deal with a dead alternator on the way home!   It's over, though, and we were very, very blessed by Sir Walter Scott's brother and by one of his childhood church leaders who still loves him as a son and came to the rescue. We've done not a lot of school with Little Princess gone; we've done math, grammar, reading, copywork, and a little bit of anatomy, but we let most of the other subjects slide in favor of living slowly with Dad and a sister gone. Before they left, we did do 2 days of reading A Girl of the Limberlost and notes about North Korea.  We had our end-of-the-month interviews with the high-schoolers, and I took an entire page of notes about hopes, helps, accomplishments, and worries for each of them. The church activity for the...

I chose this picture because it is so Little Princess. It's a bathroom selfie. Her expression! She's beautiful.  In a nutshell, here's Little Princess's 10th grade year: American Literature We used the Apologia American Literature text, supplemented with novels .  Obviously, on the list are a couple of Shakespeare's plays, and those don't count toward American Literature, but they were good reading no matter what our subject focus was. :)  Little Princess participated in all of the reading, all of the discussions, and all of the writing assignments (not too many, but a few).  She was excellent at raising questions about the historical context of the novels, moral issues, and author intent.   Performing Arts--American Rhythm Dance Team For one of Little Princess' possible future goals, she has to have at least 2 years of performing arts on her transcript.  This year plus last year made two years.  I asked her about staying on the team or leaving,...

This is Little Princess in her element! I love that she found her people! She rocked her 9th grade year.   This is a screenshot of a portion of her official transcript. I did apply 1.5 credits from her 8th grade year to this freshman year.  The first semester of Survey of American History and World History: From Christ to the Printing Press took place spring semester 2023.  These are both on Nature Angel's high school transcript, and I know it is legal to apply some 8th grade work to high school.  She did the same work Nature Angel did, and she did it just as well. Her English 9 is the same as Nature Angel's English 11 because I taught them as a "class."  They worked on grammar, writing, and literature with me.   Little Princess has rigorous plans for the future, and she will need to meet advanced standards.  For this reason, we are leaving American Rhythm off her academic transcript; we will include it as an extracurricular activity instead....

 I spent 4 delightful days with Pixie in Idaho last weekend.  She lifted me out of my old-mom comfort zone and got me to try a ropes course, go paddleboarding, and hike up an extinct volcano known as "R Mountain."   I, in turn, helped her make 10 freezer meals (2 each of 5 recipes) that should give her a solid 20 meals for the first month of the fall semester.  We also toured her campus, attended church together, watched movies, shopped, and talked and talked and talked.   It was hard to leave home to go visit her. It was equally hard to leave her to go home. My gratitude to Sir Walter Scott, Belle, Nature Angel, and Little Princess knows no bounds.  It took 3 failed attempts to visit Pixie to finally get to one success, and it would not have been possible without their voluntary sacrifice and service. On the home front, we walked every school morning--Sir Walter Scott maintained the routine while I was gone.  Most of our walks are pretty rou...