HomeSchooling
That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not alone and isolated from anyone. You belong. - F. Scott Fitzgerald
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no. yes.
Silence. Crickets chirping. Blank screen. It’s been a while, my friends. It’s been a while. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with me and words of late. I’m tired. A touch of writer’s block, I suppose. Big things to think about – no time to process. We finally have two cars again. That’s nice. Kevin is moving his office upstairs at our house. The kids were asking what we would do with Riley’s room. I guess we know. Put an office in it for now. And it’s already October, for goodness sake. Also, there’s been this: Busy. Out and out preoccupied . Edited a novel in exchange for actual…
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little man words.
One thing I love about kids in the mid-elementary school years …. their evolving, thinking brains. They’re just so clever and interesting. And they find the world around them new and intriguing. It’s all so glorious somehow. My nature-loving, full force, energetic eight-year-old boy came to me with a tiny piece of paper last week. He placed it in my hand. It was another poem. (This kid’s getting prolific.) And I think it’s really observant and lovely and inspiring and true. It reads … “Though the trees only wither in winter, joy comes again in the shape of the first bud.” If I was going to title this poem, I…
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Field Trip: The Carolina Honey Bee Company
Our Prairie Primer curriculum this year lends itself well to field trips. For various reasons I have not chosen to pursue every suggested field trip option. However, there are several field trip ideas that are just so handy, so nearby and so convenient, that it would be crazy to pass up the opportunity. Like the maple syrup store the week before. And last week – the honey store. For us – it was our friendly store The Carolina Honey Bee Company – located right here in Travelers Rest. All it took was a quick call and a simple question, “Can I bring my kids in for you to teach them a bit…
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Prairie Primer: Maple Syrup Field Trip
The lesson guide suggested – visit a farm where maple syrup is being tapped. Well. It’s almost ninety degrees outside. In South Carolina. Must try to think of another avenue. I remembered a little store on Main Street in Hendersonville. Vermontage. I’d stopped in before, lured in off the street by a sign that read “maple cotton candy”. Spun sugar. Oh, how I love you. I had no idea spun sugar could be improved upon. Maple syrup. Oh, how I love you. A completely perfect marriage of melt-in-your-mouth gooey-ness and maple syrup sweetness. And so I called the number and asked this question, “Could I bring my children to your…
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Prairie Primer: Owl Pellets
Here’s what I like so far about The Prairie Primer.. The author’s extensive research and well thought out specific plans make my life easier. In three days of school I’ve been more productive and on track than a week or two of last year’s schedule I think. (Some of that may be because it’s the first week and because I love Laura Ingalls and because I have “bigger” kids this year.) Whatever. I like it. Today my guide said to dissect owl pellets. And so we dissected owl pellets. I ordered mine from Acorn Naturalists. They were surprisingly more disgusting than I remembered from the last go round. We all…
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Prairie Primer: Day Two
“Laura had only a corncob wrapped in a handkerchief, but it was a good doll. It was named Susan. It wasn’t Susan’s fault that she was only a corncob.” (Little House in the Big Woods)
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and so the school year has officially begun ….
The internets was overflowing with them yesterday. Cute back to school pictures. Bus rides and classroom doors and lunch boxes and kitchen tables and posters announcing the grades. Monday was our day to start up again too. Four students attending Wildwood this year. Same number as last year. Riley exited stage right and Finnian entered stage left. I like back to school just fine although I can’t seem to explain how summer leapt by this year and my mind still can’t believe one of my own graduated all officially and stuff. This school year I’ve been more excited about beginning than usual though . We are using the Prairie Primer…
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Hawkeye.
This boy. Oh. He just has my heart. He starts third grade next week and that just is too old to be true. Too fast. He still wants me to cuddle in bed at night. He creates games with his little brother and isn’t embarrassed to hold Otto’s hand and tell me how cute Otto looks. Inspired by his big sister, he made his first attempt at a Lord of the Rings inspired dish. Lembas bread. It was really good. And this week he asked me if it would be okay if he painted something. I said yes. He asked me to not watch what he was painting. He said…
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English Teachers Ruin Literature
English teachers ruin literature. It’s a bold claim, I know. I used to be an English teacher. Well. I still am an English teacher. I’ve been guilty of this. We ruin good literature. We put books that are inappropriate for their age or for their life experience into students’ hands and command, “read“. That’s the first offense. And the second offense? Oh – I think it is even worse. We talk about the books to death. We tell them (gasp!) what the author meant! We tell them what to think about Jane Eyre’s escape from Mr. Rochester. We tell them why Virginia Woolf uses imagery. We tell them so much…
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more than lunch.
Last week, or something like that, I was approached by London and asked my favorite question of my every day – “What’s for lunch?” I didn’t answer with my standard full of love and kindness response. (Which, by the way, is a monosyllabic delivery of the word “food”.) Nope. I said something else. I said, “Why don’t you decide what’s for lunch. Would you and Mosely like to fix lunch?” I said it to be funny. I was laughing to myself. But London replied, “Yes! Please don’t come in the kitchen.” So I did my part. Which was nothing. And I did it like a champ too, I’ll have you know. When…
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a kayak experience. my favorite day of vacation.
I can’t believe it’s been weeks since we returned from the beach. Will I never cease being amazed/disappointed/confounded by the rapid passage of time? (I’m confident the only answer to that question is no!) It was such an active trip and by active I mean – we did stuff we have never been able to do on vacations before. Biking, for one. And for another – kayaking. I really love kayaking. But as a family of eight with young children, it was an event that seemed mostly out of our reach. First – because not everyone could paddle by themselves. Second – because renting anything adds up quickly times eight.…
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a poem inspired by a poet.
Our last official school field trip was to Carl Sandburg’s house. If you perchance recall, I didn’t write the post I intended because I was overcome with distraction from the bittersweet surprise of my youngest son’s seemingly overnight growing up. The post I intended to write was more like this: First we toured the house. (I want to own his farm, Connemara. I want to save up/steal/inherit/find in a brown paper bag on the side of the highway an absolutely ludicrous amount of money. Then I want to use all of that money to purchase the land from the current owners – the National Park System. Then I plan to kick…
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Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution — Book Review
Reading is a cornerstone to our school here. (Speaking of school – did I ever share a photo of Riley’s diploma? Someone somehow remind me to do that one day. Kevin did a fabulous job on it – it looks like a lovely work of art. And the official name on the official document? After much deliberation and various suggestions, we landed on Wildwood Halls of Ivy.) But back to my original subject. Reading. With Ambleside Online, assigned read-alouds make up a large portion of our curriculum base. This term our history focus has been the Revolutionary War period and the beginning of democracy in America. We’ve read through Natalie…
