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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Wildwood Academy: Group Study
Homeschool is proceeding differently this year. A true statement I can make every year. Even though I waited in line a loooong time to get into a fabulous homeschool co-op last year, we’re not all doing the same co-op this year. (And it still is fabulous, mind you – just not what our house needs this year.) Riley is attending classes there but my younger crowd is heading in a different direction. I mentioned being excited (I might have said “wildly optimistic”) about an upcoming joint homeschooling venture with several other families. We’re two weeks in and it seems to be going swimmingly. The idea was born of thus: Four…
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Today I Lived
Today I . . . Heard about cookie butter for the second time but have yet to actually see the food product. Forgot to bring the laundry in again after two days of rain showers. I think I saw a towel in the lawn but I just don’t want to walk over there and deal with it. Put off making applesauce with my bushel of apples for yet another day. Failed to have the girls clean their bedroom. Noticed mold growing on a book on our shelf. (This is the dampest house ever!) Wept with my husband over the heavy burden we feel to parent these sons and daughters tenderly…
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Book Club
I can’t believe we didn’t take a picture. Not one picture. Not this month. Not last month. Not the month before. Five mothers. Six daughters. That many cell phones equipped with efficient cameras and still no pictures. Three months ago several friends and I began a new venture together with a portion of our daughters. Book Club. It’s a Mother Daughter Book Club inspired completely by the book 100 Books for Girls to Grow On. (And I have been waiting all this time to write a post about it so that I could have photos to accompany words. But after tonight’s third time of forgetting to take a single photograph,…
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Keigley Campaign: The Idea(l)
I think it was May when we first had the idea. Yes, yes it was May. (I like how a blog reminds me of things I forget.) And it was also May when I said my plan was to tell you about our camping campaign idea. (I don’t like how blogs remind me of things I forget to do.) And so far, all I have done is tell you about one particular camping adventure. And that’s okay I guess. I doubt you’ve been hanging on to the edge of your seats waiting for me to follow through with that. (But if you have – I’m sorry.) And today I’m going…
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Wildwood Academy, established . . . uh, I’m bad with numbers
A few of our school supplies have not yet arrived in brown cardboard boxes at our door. However, we have officially begun the 2012-2013 school year. (I never have liked the fact that we tag on the next year’s date with this year’s date when we describe the school year. It makes the current year seem to go by so quickly. Why didn’t the inventor of the school year calendar just have school run from February to November or something? Anything more chronologically appealing than mashing two perfectly good years into one.) Like every parent out there, I am still in shock that I have a senior in high school…
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hello new school year
School’s back in session. And I’m snagging another one of Charlotte Mason’s ideas to encourage me to keep focus this year. I crafted a little art project with the quote and placed it in our school room. (I’ve been saving this ripped children’s book from my own kid days for a number of years, just waiting for the right art project to bring it out of hiding.) And now, I’m off to try to fill my kids’ days with something to love, something to think about and something to do!
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that time ….
It’s that time of year. Summer’s demise. Sleeping in. Makeshift breakfasts. Lazy afternoons. Free range children. That’s all about to change. We’re heading toward morning routines, scheduled days, school work, regular bedtimes. And it always feels as if it has come so fast. I’m not drowning, but as I told my friend this week, I do feel a little sinky. There’s maybe a little too much water in my ship right now. I still need to pick up a couple of books to begin classes next week. I haven’t finalized what our daily schedule will look like this year. No one is used to waking up and eating breakfast at…
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can the grocery store be a field trip?
When you are raising young children, every time you leave your house – it’s an adventure. They’re so curious about all the details of life. The trips that may be mundane to us are still full of wonder to them. I’m always seeing advertisements and links to websites for homeschooling and classes and projects and activities. I keep a notebook near the computer where I jot down leads and eventually research them to see if they’ll fit our family. The most recent one I sat at our old desk and typed into my search engine of choice was fieldtripfactory.com. It’s a website designed to connect educators with local businesses that…
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Summer Field Trippin’
Summer definitely looks different than the school year. We sleep a lot later. Our meals are routinely consumed at less-than-normal intervals. We find ourselves in or near water with a higher degree of frequency. But all school isn’t completely shut down for us. (We’re actually continuing math for the summer and we never stop all that good reading.) Plus. We get to go on some fun field trips too. Last Friday we joined a handful of fellow homeschoolers for a drive into the North Carolina mountains to visit the Cradle of Forestry. I love any excuse to drive into the Pisgah National Forest, to enjoy the always-slightly-cooler temperatures, to be…
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Jamestown. And Jamestowne.
We’ve been studying the history of England and the events that led to the explorations of America for the better part of our homeschool year. And it’s such a lovely blessing to live within driving distance of the location of the first permanent American settlement. As soon as we started even getting near to the study of the Jamestown settlement, I knew a trip to the Virginia coast would be in our future. One, because I like any excuse to visit the Motherland, state of my birth, land of the presidents, envy of all other states, home to beautiful mountains and all of my childhood memories. (Yes, I’m a little…
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Duke Botanical Gardens: A Lovely Halfway Spot
During the school year we spent a lot of our history time studying British history and the early exploration and settling of North America. Knowing we had family living in the Jamestown area, we began planning an end-of-the-school-year Virginia trip back in the winter. And last weekend, we headed northeast for a couple of days of relaxing educational adventuring. Looking at the map, it seemed we would be passing through Durham right around lunch time. Our good pal PopPop lives in Durham and when we contacted him to see if he’d be available for lunch that day, he said more than just “yes”. Bob (that’s the name his momma gave…
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masterly inactivity
Masterly Inactivity. Almost an oxymoron. It’s a hard one for sure. Another Charlotte Mason tenet I try to figure out the balance of what she says and what I know and what we’re actually doing and how I can misuse even the beautiful intentions of my own heart. Masterly Inactivity. It’s the idea that our children need time. They need large quantities of time when they are not being shuffled from class to piano to karate to dinner to homework to bath to bed. They need time regularly. And in abundance. Time to begin and finish that wooden block village that looks exactly like Jamestown. Time to spend so long…
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in the gallery
On her own, all the time, London draws. She holds her pencil contrary to the way in which I showed her in kindergarten. But like so often in her eight years, she has discovered her own way to approach a task and she has mastered it in that unique manner. This time, her pencil captured Otto Fox Wilder and all the treasures that matter to him. And I could not have done better. This I know.
