School

I have been working on getting our school room whipped into shape.  I don't just move couches.  Sometimes I stack furniture too.

This fall I will start my 11th year of homeschooling.  You don't have to have a reaction.  I usually am uncomfortable with reactions.  People either 1) obviously think I'm crazy, 2) tell me I'm "amazing" (not true) and they could "never do that" (also not true), or 3) say, "oh," like they don't really care either way (that is definitely the reaction I prefer). 

I don't homeschool because I'm amazing ( Ha!) or because I think public schools are bad or because I am trying to shield my children from anything.  I homeschool just because I really like to do it.  It's hard and takes up a lot of my time and just like any job, can be relentless.

But. I. Love. It.

This year I am trying something different.  I am using some of the same curriculum as my sisters  (Quite literally in some cases...I borrowed some books from Marianne.) and using some things I've found all on my own.  Doing something brand new feels freeing and exhilarating.

And scary.  Thank heavens I have a sisterhood of fellow homeschoolers that give me guidance. (I have been exchanging emails with my spectacular SIL Jennifer about curriculum.  I have talked to Olivia 2 or 3--thousand--times.  I have impatiently waited for Marianne to get home already so I can talk to her about it all.  Occasionally she has the nerve to have a life of her own and not be at my beck and call.  The audacity of that girl!)

I have long been skeptical of people that make up their own curriculum.  I have comfortably followed what others have outlined for me to do.  I will still largely do that except for two areas: science and writing.  I am branching out on my own in those two subject areas.  Armed with the state standards for 4th grade, some purchased science curriculum and a membership to the Pacific Science Center we are going to have some fun. 

As for writing.  Oh writing.  I love to write and Mark does not.  I have been rereading one of my favorite textbooks from college, The Art of Teaching Writing by Lucy McCormick Calkins.  As I read it, I remember the feelings I had in college about it.  Yes.  Yes!  It resonates on a deep level as the Right Way to teach writing.  With ten years homeschooling under my belt, with one imaginative red head, with time to devote to the craft, we are going to write.

And I am excited.