October 14, 2014

Today I learned just how important it is for young learners to have the time and freedom to go deeper into information in which they have been introduced. Our day started with Matthew and Arianna writing with quills and ink. They loved it. We had picked this lovely set of parchment with the Gettysburg address written on it in Abes hand, the ink, and the feather quill on our trip to Springfield this past weekend. Arianna sat in front of me in dressed as Laura Ingalls Wilder fr...

October 13, 2014

Well today was interesting. Columbus day. I started the day reading the kids and article about Seattle banning the celebration of Columbus to honor Indigenous people. Yes, they have dumped Columbus Day to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead. They are amongst several cities around the USA, and the entire state of South Dakota has never honored the day denoted as Columbus Day. The kids were quite fascinated by this article, and the accusations thrown out about the man they...

October 12, 2014

We took a family field trip this weekend to Springfield, IL. The home of Abraham Lincoln. My kids think they hate history. What they really hate is filling in blanks, and memorizing names to match with dates about events they don’t understand. So it was a trick on my part to teach history differently. It worked!  The kids LOVED every minute of learning this way, and so did the parents. We went to Lincoln’s house--the only national park in all of Illinois. We watched a sho...

October 9, 2014

I had an informal meeting today with a friend, who brought her son along. The boys asked if they could use their bebe guns to shoot at targets. We agreed, and off they went. As we talked and occasionally peeked out the window, we realized how happy they seemed. They were setting up elaborate targets with boxes and cans and paper circles. The planning that went into the intended bulls-eye platforms was truly a work of art. Annie Oakley would be so proud. We watched as they disc...

October 7, 2014

Yesterday my daughter turned 11 years old. She asked for a walking globe to perfect her circus arts training. She also wanted a venus fly trap plant and her ears pierced. She is getting so big, but she requested something else for her special day: to play a game with “the whole family.” She wanted to play a board game with us. She let her brother help pick a game from our abundance choices in the game closet. They came back with Harry Potter Clue. None of us had played thi...

October 5, 2014

Final show of Dr. Dolittle happened this afternoon, fifth performance. We spent almost everyday of our last month at this theater. The John Lumber Center for the Performing arts at the College of Lake County are home away from home. It became an incredible adventure for Arianna. As I reflect on her journey from auditioning to showtime, I am in awe of how much learning happened just by being a part of life. For one, Arianna read the book Dr. Dolittle, a known classic that would...

September 27, 2014

My Arianna was cast in Dr. Dolittle at our local community college. She auditioned, she got a call back. She got disappointed with a duel part casting as a little monkey and a circus ball walker (yes she can walk on a ball), but no speaking lines. So, she went the first week a bit sad, and I was sad for her. As the days ticked along, and the rehearsals became longer I thought she would start complaining about the amount of time she was giving to this production. I watched a...

September 16, 2014

Two weeks into this schooling without school project, and WOW the change is our home is Amazing. My kids opened their own cake business. They are making gluten free and dairy free cakes from scratch. They have made an excellent flourless chocolate cake, perfected carrot cake muffins, and are designing a chocolate cream filled cake. They have bought their own ingredients, they have done the math to calculate the cost of each ingredient. They have researched why organic ingre...

September 3, 2014

The day after Labor Day is a good start school day according to my husband. The dilemma I have is not the start date. It is the approach. I just realized that we are two different pages of the homeschool book. Yes, we did buy a bunch of books for the kids this year. Yes, I did show them these books, explain the books, make them binders. Yes, even I am having trouble of completely letting go of all I know about school--textbooks, review questions, math, spelling and grammar. ...

August 23, 2014

It’s 8:30 am, raining hard, the sky is grey and dreary outside, and we are all asleep. It also happens to be the first day of public school in this town. We slept through the dragging of kids out of bed. We slept through the rush of getting dressed in new school clothes. We slept through the hurried half eaten breakfast, the missing shoe, the craziness of racing to the bus stop. As the kids woke up to their own rhythm, and meandered downstairs, we ate a healthy, happy breakf...

August 12, 2014

School Registration Day.  The day kids wait for in August to find out who their teacher will be this school year.  The day they call all their friends to see who is sharing this classroom experience with them for the next nine months. The non-stop phone ringing (or texting) that is fun and exciting or disappointing depending on weather your BFF is in your class.

Well our phone is not buzzing. Our house is quietly subdue. The kids are feeling left out of this summer right of pa...