5.05.2023

Portfolio Time!

We love making portfolios and meeting with our evaluator. We keep a log starting July 1 of time spent on "school" subjects and a list of books and materials. I am more of a backwards planner than anything else, inclined to let life unfold and then journal about it after the fact. This means we get to March and realize that we have done a deep dive into colonial American history but neglected music history. Marko realized he only did about 25% of his math program. Handwriting and copywork fell to the wayside for 2 of the 3 kids. Laurel spent enormous amounts of time working on a fiction project but we didn't study many novels together, as we had in the past. We went to a ton of museums....Johnson Space Center, pretty much every history and art museum in Pittsburgh, a really amazing little collection of folk artist Alice Moseley in Mississippi, and of course, the "living" museum that was biking the C&O towpath and Great Allegheny Passage. How cool that we followed the path that George Washington took and it goes right past our house. My mom put together anatomy lessons for us, but we haven't done the required fire safety yet.


What I like about the checklists is the visual representation of how we spent our time and how easy it is to see what we didn't do. Marko got to work on his math and quickly caught up. I gave a few copywork prompts to see how their handwriting was (abysmal) and decided to order some workbooks from Handwriting Without Tears. Laurel and I brainstormed about some ways to do more literature study, and started thinking about ways she can socialize more with her peers and also start taking some formal math and science classes with labs. She invited a friend over for a bike ride, and then accepted an invitation to meet some other homeschool teens at the library. We happened to get an email on fire safety from our new apartment management, and decided to take a minute to review the features and also talk about escape routes and memorize our new address.

Each kid writes a letter to our evaluator to be included in the portfolio. I love seeing what they thought were the most important things that happened this year! I write a little summary about their current knowledge and skills and what we plan to work on next. There is no "below or above grade level" - just an honest assessment of what each of us did and some thinking about what we would like to do next, with an eye towards balanced living and learning. I also like that M and I can participate in a similar process along with the kids....we don't make portfolios, but we do decide what are the things we want to focus on in the next few months (bike rides! swimming! making a batch of soap!) and things we want to be done with (working on the house!)

4.15.2023

Roadschooling Our Way

Roadschooling is my favorite....it's not without its challenges, but I think the unique and diverse learning experiences we get out of it are worth it. I'm learning how to do this better all the time. 


Where should I go?
Pick a location...it can be anywhere! A lot of people want to aim for national parks, and yes, these are among the most spectacular places to visit, but they are 1) crowded and 2) very far apart. I advise that you instead aim for a region that is within your comfort zone for driving distance, weather and budget, go there for at least a week or two and explore everything slowly. Trust me, it won't matter what you pick...there are amazing things everywhere. 

How do I find things to do?
Scope out the big and small museums, county and state parks, regional foods, Native American tribal councils, libraries, hiking paths, and fairs or festivals. I love the Adventure Lab app that goes with the Geoaching app and find it well worth the $36 a year subscription fee. You get walking tours for many locations that give you something to do and also point out some historical or geographical points of interest. We will visit a coffee shop and get the local paper to see what events are going on. When we stay in private campgrounds there are sometimes seasonal residents there who will host potlucks or other social events and you can find out from them what is going on in the area. 

Will there be a test?
Definitely not. We don't have grades in our homeschool. They get scores on math and then find mistakes and resubmit until they know it. For social studies and science they will write a few essays or do a big project throughout the year, but I have found quizzing them to be a waste of their time and mine. We talk about what we've seen and write down questions that we have, which often shapes the next adventure. We use maps and a timeline to orient ourselves.

How do you know what the kids are going to learn?
I really don't. We have some guiding questions....who used to live here? Do they still live here? If not, what happened? This can apply to any species. The physical science is often the reason behind things coming and going. We read signs and look at museum exhibits and usually end up with a lot of questions and then look online and watch videos or read articles. This morning we turned on a livestream from NASA, thinking we would see the view from the International Space Station, but instead it was a panel discussion on contributions of African Americans to NASA and related agencies. Those historic markers you find on the side of the road are usually pretty barebones in their description but if you search for youtube or visit archives.gov you can dig deeper into the story. 

How much is enough?
Sometimes I panic that we are not doing enough....but don't fall into this trap. Leave space for thinking about things. We like to hike or fly kites. Not every second has to be filled with acquisition of new information. Our society has become way too rushed and we complain that our kids have difficulty with transitions. I spent years trying to figure out how to sweep children along with maximum efficiency, but I have since changed my mind about this approach.  I slashed the fat from our schedule several years ago and then kept slashing until we found a place of equilibrium. When we are at a good place with our schedule my kids have zero problems getting ready and out the door. I learned about backwards planning from Julie Bogart and having a daily reflection period for sketching or jotting down a few notes about what we did has been game-changing. Trust the process. Slow down and what you've done will almost always be enough. And if it wasn't enough, you don't have to consider it a personal failure, just incorporate what was missing the next day, the next week, the next year.

Does it cost a lot of money?
It can cost whatever you want it to cost. Many museums have a free day. Getting a membership and visiting one place many times while you are there may be more cost effective and a richer experience than rushing through a bunch of different ones. Reading historic markers is free. Libraries are free and will have interesting highly localized collections. If you stay at state parks, programming there is usually free. The junior ranger badgework that national parks offer is free. Camping is a pretty low cost way of travel once you have equipment. Sometimes it's worth it to pay a tour guide or museum admission, but you don't have to cram your trip full of these experiences. 

3.16.2023

DITL Mid-Year

I started the day with granola and coffee and then did a few chores until the kids woke up. M went running with friends. When Max got up, we snuggled on the couch and I read a chapter from Winnie the Pooh. The kids made themselves breakfast and we went to my parents' house to visit with their cousin, who is about a year and a half and really starting to talk and run around a lot. He's so much fun. Then we went to a playground that has a super big slide and a ropes course. It wasn't super warm, but it was sunny. On the way to our stops today, we continued listening to the History that Doesn't Suck podcast, an episode about the Battle of New Orleans and Andrew Jackson. When we got home, Laurel made lunch for the kids and I went for a walk with M to the grocery store and coffee shop. When we got home, I read another chapter of Winnie the Pooh while everyone ate lunch together. After lunch, Laurel went to work on Khan Academy. She's planning to take an algebra placement test in a few weeks and wants to finish the 7th grade math curriculum before then. She's taking a Brave Writer class on nonfiction writing and read the message board for that class. Her topic is red tailed hawks, so she had her eye out for them today, but we didn't see any, which is actually kind of unusual. Then she composed a reminder email to her aunts for book club next week. The book they are reading is A Snake Falls to Earth, which I recommended to her (and she loved it!) so I feel pretty happy about that. The boys played a version of multiplication war. Years ago when I was teaching algebra to high school students who really hated math, I came across this blog post with ideas for expanding on the classic card game, and it was life changing. After War, they did a few workbook pages. After all that, I doled out some Girl Scout cookies. 


Now it's gaming/tv/social time. Marko and Max usually log on to a google meet and play Minecraft with a few other kids and Laurel usually watches tv with one of her friends, or will do a video chat with them. Or, if our next door neighbor is home from school, they will go for a walk. During this time, I rest, exercise, do chores or catch up on homeschool paperwork (or write a quick blog post to remember how life is in the midst of an unexpected move/construction/new job....actually pretty calm and manageable, thanks to homeschooling). 

2.10.2023

Galveston Island

 We came down to the Gulf Coast to celebrate M's birthday with some Mardi Gras festivities, enjoy winter beach time and learn about space exploration. For the first part of our trip, we caravanned from one parking lot to another with my parents, putting in long days in order to get out of the cold, and luckily we got to Galveston Island just in the knick of time to avoid ice storms. The weather was cool and rainy on our first few days, but the sun eventually came out and we are enjoying the beach and pool now. I bought a membership to the Houston Space Center to allow for multiple visits and we still haven't seen everything there. We also did some Adventure Labs in Galveston (this is an add-on to the Geocaching app where it leads you through a guided tour - usually walking, but sometimes driving - to see noteworthy sites). We learned about the businessman and philanthropist, Henry Rosenberg and ended the tour with a visit to the library he funded, which also had a rare book collection with a 500 year old book (!) and an exhibit of photographs from the devastating 1900 hurricane that killed 1 in 6 residents of the island. We ate kolaches, crawfish boil and king cake. We got a new single line kite and are flying our dual line stunt kite on the beach a lot. 

We are staying at a KOA Holiday here in Galveston. It's newly updated with concrete camping pads (great for rainy weather - no mud!) and full hookups. There is a lazy river pool, a regular pool, a hot tub, laundry, hot showers, a trampoline and a playground. Our site backs up to a marsh and we have spent many evenings sitting around our campfire and listening to the birds. Definitely a luxury setting for us! M is working during this trip, so having wifi or good cell is important. I also like this campground because you can walk right across the street to get to the public access beach and it's all houses down here so the beach is never crowded. 

12.31.2022

2022

2021 was not the greatest year, but luckily 2022 was much better. It feels like we didn't do anything this year but that may be the after effects of having such a wild 2021. In fact, a lot happened. We took everything at a pace that felt right.


We went to Mississippi and Texas for about a month in the winter. We went to our first Mardi Gras parade (actually a week before Mardi Gras and it was a more family friendly, though still pretty wild, parade in Bay St. Louis and Waveland, MS). We learned to fly a trick kite on the beach in Galveston and went on a swamp boat tour in Louisiana. We saw the massive Saturn V rocket that was never launched at a cool science center just off the I-10. We did a mini adventure into New Orleans to walk around some public gardens and go to Cafe du Monde for beignets. The highlight for me was seeing the mounds at Poverty Point in Louisiana. 

We taught classes at our homeschool co-op....poetry, a comic fan club, and circuits. The kids took lots of classes and made tons of friends. Laurel has been learning all sorts of fiber arts and how to cook things on the campfire. She did a yoga class and even led a demonstration at the end of the semester. Marko enjoyed his first acting and improv class and has asked for more of those. Max loved every class he took, but especially music theory and graphic novels. 

M ran a trail ultra. He ended up going to the race solo...it was important for him to get back out there, but hard for the rest of us to imagine being there while he ran. He had a decent race and felt pretty good, but it ended up being his only ultra this year. He did do a lot of running with his friends early in the morning, and started going out with the running club that meets down the street, and even ran with me and the kids! He headed up an aid station at Rachel Carson and the kids loved helping him out with that. We even took one of our out-of-town visitors up to help at the aid station for a while! I think we'll get out to more races in different ways in the next few years, because it's something I really miss.

Probably the best thing we did this year was bike the C&O Towpath and Great Allegheny Passage from Washington DC to Pittsburgh. Looking back, I bought the train tickets in mid-July for a September 1 departure. Very daring. Our first rides with the kids were only 2 or 3 miles! They constantly swerved into each other and complained about needing snacks. We just kept taking them on longer and longer day rides and got some 20+ mile days in before leaving. I think we were successful in completing the ride because we gave ourselves a very generous itinerary of 10 days to do 350ish miles, which gave us plenty of time to take breaks and ride slow. The rain was epic and the conditions on the towpath were pretty gnarly. There were two challenging detours. It could have been terrible, but it actually felt fun almost the entire time. They now have excellent trail manners and an amazing boost of confidence in their abilities to try new things. I think we'll be doing more self-propelled adventuring in 2023.

Homeschooling is going really well. This is our fourth school year doing it and I think we finally figured out our style. Lots of self-directed learning with a healthy dose of road-schooling and family adventuring, and a sprinkling of Core Knowledge and Brave Writer activities each month. I keep a master list of goals for each of us that are based on what the kids want to learn, the state standards, classes or trips or volunteer opportunities that are on our calendar already and any other things I think are really important to focus on. (And by "master list" I mean I have a piece of 8x10 notebook paper for each person with ideas scribbled on it. Not very flashy, but it works.) Each month I meet with the kids 1:1 to decide what they want to work on and what resources they need. Around the 25th of each month, we meet again to see what they accomplished vs what they need to finish up or push to the next month and we also make decisions at that time about what to revise or even abandon. All fall, we ended up deciding to just carry on with our study of colonial America, which was fine with me and led to a much richer and more nuanced understanding. Anything they want to save gets filed in the portfolio folder or we take a picture of it, and we shred everything else and put it in the compost. This is my favorite part...I love decluttering. It helps my brain think more clearly. I work with each kid individually on "school days" but a lot of their learning is very independent, spontaneous and with each other or with friends. For instance I just went downstairs and the boys have wired up the Makey Makey to some grapefruits and are using them to control a video game. Laurel was working on a painting to fulfill her Girl Scout Tree badge. We watch a lot of documentaries and visit museums as a group and Marko and Max tend to play a lot of games together. Each week they take turns going up to help my mom babysit their cousin, and we also go regularly to take M's mom on an outing to the library. 

Life is good and we are looking forward to carrying on in 2023. 

12.07.2022

Holiday Time

Today we had the "Share Fair" for our homeschool co-op. This semester, M and I taught 3 classes...one on circuits, one on poetry and one on comics (inspired by Cat Kid Comic Club). When we put out the work to display today, I realized how proud I was of what they had all learned...everyone a little different and a different amount. Most of the kids came by with a family member or friends to show off their work. Lots of additional kids were interested in our circuits, which all had variable noises and lights. We boxed up the class materials into kits they could take home. 


The last few months have been a little bit of a struggle for me. I feel like the kids are on very different levels in all subjects. There's only three of them, but I feel like I have a lot of strands going on in my head at all times! I decided not to teach any classes in the spring term and volunteer in another way with the co-op because the kids still want to go. I also think I need to introduce a little more structure for each of my kids at home. The year started off a little crazy because M's dad was sick almost the whole month of August and then we went on a 2 week bicycle ride right after that. It was much less crazy than the previous year, so I didn't really think much about it at the time, but we ended up having to be really flexible for a while with a lot of "school on the go." 

We've been doing a deep dive into American history for a while and I'm ready to move on to some science. I have a feeling that most of our  I'm trying to rekindle my crochet skills and work on a coursera on UX design. We have a few field trips planned including a return to Galveston Island. I also want to set up better project space around the house to encourage the kids to work on stuff, and finally call the piano tuner. 

The holidays are upon us, and I'm feeling pretty chill about it. We have a good amount of social outings to see our friends and family, but also plenty of time to be together at home. 

11.01.2022

October Homeschool

 We had a lot of pleasant weather in October. It hardly rained and the leaves seemed to stay on the trees for a long time. The ones on our block are finally dropping so I'm out with my rake every day. I put them on the garden beds in a big pile, run my weed whacker through them and then spread them around. I'm finding a lot of dead spotted lantern flies in the leaves, which makes me worried about how many eggs must surely be around. I guess we'll find out in the spring. 

Laurel continued her study of George Washington this month. We went to the Heinz History Center and Fort Pitt Museum, read some biographies and listened to a lot of podcasts...the favorite being History that Doesn't Suck. She's writing an essay on his leadership. She's also been learning how to sew and made her Halloween costume....a dragon based on a character from the book series, Wings of Fire. She sewed horns, scales, wings and a tale onto a sweatshirt...it turned out pretty well and she really did do the whole thing by herself. 

Marko worked on his costume, which was centered around this paper mask of a mountain goat he found online. There were 19 pages of tiny pieces to cut out and fold and glue together! He decided to paint the horns gold. It was impressive when it was done, although not that sturdy. It made it through the damp weather on Halloween but I don't think it's something he can use multiple times. 

Max went as baby Yoda (Grogu) and his costume was pretty simple...a headband with ears on it that he found at the thrift store, a shawl that I repurposed as a cloak, and some green face paint. We haven't done face paint on the kids before and he loved it. 

We also went to Bicycle Heaven, a museum we had seen advertised when we were on our bike trip. It's a huge, private collection of steel bikes in a warehouse on the North Side. The bike from the PeeWee Herman movie is there. It's a working bike shop. Oddly, there was a nail salon as well. 

Marko and Max are working through some social studies units on the miscellaneous things that textbook editors think elementary students should know....latitude, map scale, world religions. Everyone learned about the digestive system, and my mom created a hands on model of the digestive tract for them. 

I bought a new math book to hopefully help Laurel level up. She's not terrible at math and actually pretty intuitive when it comes to practical applications like estimating money or ingredients for baking or sewing. But I have noticed gaps in her math vocabulary during the last two months of working in the Algebra book. Hopefully this supplemental book (called Bridge the Gap: Math) will help. I'm making Marko do it, too.

To be honest, October felt a little flat for homeschool. I think I just really prefer traveling and loved doing the bike trip in September. Part of that joy comes from my ability to focus solely on our kids. On the bike trip, I didn't even turn my cell phone on except a few times in town. We were really focused on one thing and experiencing it together. When we are home there are a lot of other situations that need my attention and our activities are scattered. 

9.28.2022

Bike Camping from Washington DC to Pittsburgh

We went on a pretty epic vacation with our kids. I'm still somewhat shocked that we managed to pull it off and actually ride our bicycles, together, from Washington DC to Pittsburgh, over 350 miles! It was also amazing in other ways....we got to spend a lot of time together with M actually taking time off work, we happened to be riding at the absolute best time to be harvesting paw paws along the Potomac, and we met so many cool people along the way. The weather was rather terrible at times, and there were two challenging detours, but mainly we had fun. So, how did we arrive at this idea? And more importantly, how did we get our kids to actually do it?


Literally everyone thought that our idea was crazy and that there was no way we were going to be able to do it. Haters gonna hate and all that. However, M and I had previously biked an equivalent distance towing 2 of the kids (an out and back to Cumberland, MD), and I have ridden on the GAP many times alone or with friends, and once did the Washington DC to Pittsburgh trip by myself. So, we were very familiar with the trails, the logistics of getting to Washington and what it's like to do a multi-day trip on bikes. M scheduled his vacation days, and I bought train tickets and booked a hotel in Georgetown. Now we were committed. 

The first time I took the kids out on bikes for a group ride, they were constantly swerving into each other, yelling at each other, failing to signal, nobody could make it up a hill, and I think we went about 4 miles. It was terrible and I was worried, for sure. However, we just kept going out, and their trail manners improved. They built up some stamina for hills. In August we made it out for several 20+ mile rides where everybody learned a lot about hydration and nutrition and Sheetz saved the day. In the meantime, we were getting our bikes serviced...there was something wonky with my headset that a mechanic at REI fixed and M took his 20 year old Surly Trucker to a neighborhood bike shop and had it spruced up. We bought a bunch of bags and worked to fit 2 tents, 3 quilts, sleeping pads, food for 5, water vessels, clothing, extra tubes and repair gear, and a stove. This was complicated by the fact that not everybody could actually haul gear, but we managed to make it work, although M definitely had a LOADED bike. 

The train to Washington leaves at 5am, so the night before we biked down to a hotel near the train station. The train ride was long, but we got there in the afternoon with plenty of time to make the 5ish mile bike trip through the National Mall and up the Rock Creek Trail to Georgetown. We stopped for some very expensive ice cream ($8 for a cone!!??) and took a look at the monuments, but it was very hot and we did not linger. When we got to Georgetown, our hotel was right on the Canal. We had time for showers and dinner out at a restaurant before going to bed. The next morning we set out on the Towpath. 

Our plan was to camp along the C&O Canal because we really didn't know how far the kids could go, but we did know there are plenty of campsites...every 5-10 miles along the entire 184 mile path. They don't require reservations and all have water, so we figured we could just go as far as we could go and always have a place to camp. If we got behind schedule and ran out of time, we could always hop back on the train in Cumberland and go to Pittsburgh. But every day the kids rode a little further than what was on our itinerary and despite truly epic amounts of rain, and two difficult detours, we got to Cumberland on the 5th day.  The hotel clerk directed us to the bike wash station and even gave us special towels to dry our bikes off. We were so muddy and smelly but she didn't even blink an eye. Then it was up to the rooms for showers and laundry. We let the kids watch tv and we ordered pizza and wings for dinner. We were pretty grimy after 5 days of pedaling in the heat and 4 nights of primitive camping. Plus the mud (oh the mud). But we had also really gotten into the rhythm of being together, of eating camp food and riding as a group, and sleeping in tents. We had 5 days left to ride the Great Allegheny Passage, and at 150 miles with a lot of downhill, that suddenly felt very achievable. 

The weather was still pretty rainy so we ended up riding part of the way up Savage Mountain - only 15 miles - and stopping for the day at a hostel in Frostburg. We got soaked the entire way. We had the leftover pizza with us for lunch and had to eat it quickly before it got soggy. It was still raining when we left the next morning but the skies did clear when we got to the top and we had a great view. We had our sights set on Confluence, so we kept moving. We camped at the Yough Overflow Campground, which was super nice and had hot showers. The next day we went to Connellsville and stayed at the KOA, with not only hot showers but also a swimming pool! The weather was looking gnarly though, and we had to make some decisions about how to get home. The kids ended up agreeing to ride almost 50 miles from Connellsville to Homestead, so that we could stay in a hotel for our last night (and not camp and ride in the rain). It ended up being a great plan, and we enjoyed another restaurant dinner and a fairly leisurely 8 mile ride into Point State Park the next day...in the rain of course. We then had to get home, which was another 6 or 7 miles, and up the dreaded giant hill. There's just no way around it. But we were all cheering when we pulled into our driveway. 

Along the way we met a French family on a 6 month bike tour of North America, a retired couple who had ridden a tandem bicycle to Maryland...from Oregon, and a disabled veteran who was walking 1,300 miles with his dog towards the 9/11 memorial in Somerset. 

We ate dehydrated meals I prepared at home, Kraft mac, tortillas and crackers, cheese, pepperoni, peanut butter, loads of candy, oatmeal, PopTarts and paw paws! We used our Jetboil to heat water, for lack of a better cooking system. Cooking for 5 is pretty time consuming, but this worked out ok.

We saw herons, egrets, bald eagles, turtles, frogs, toads, cats, and a bear.

We slept in an ancient Mountain Hardware tent and a new Hogback tarp tent. One regret is that although we also carried a sil nylon tarp we didn't have a good way to set it up to make shelter for cooking or sitting under. More line? Extra poles? I'm not sure what the solution is but I'll definitely be working on that before our next camping trip. 

We thankfully didn't have many mechanical issues, but did have one flat tire (in a rain storm, of course). We tried to patch it but ended up swapping out the tube. Maybe the glue didn't set because of the rain? We were lugging enough stuff to be able to stop and help another cyclist with HIS flat tire, and even had a spare tube to give him, since he didn't have the right one. That felt pretty good.

We kept safe by carrying a first aid kit, foil blankets, water filtration, and being first aid/CPR certified and experienced in backcountry safety and risks. We wore helmets. But probably the safest thing was being away from cars. I am definitely up for more rail trail or gravel riding, but I would not take my kids on a road tour any time soon. 

We have a bungee strap called a TowWhee, which I used to give Max a boost, since he's on a 20" bike with 3 gears (just not a fair fight, lol). It loops around his handlebars and loops onto my saddle. It definitely requires good communication between riders. Max still has to pedal and balance and brake and all that so it cannot be used if a kid is totally exhausted or not able to pay attention. We probably used it about 30% of the time. When we were not using it, I just stowed it in a little cupholder that I attached to his handlebars. 

And finally, how did we keep everyone motivated? We knew that we each had different strengths and weaknesses and that we would all be supporting each other...and needing support in different ways. The boys did not ride as fast as the rest of us might have liked. But they were also the best at finding paw paws and delighted in catching toads or playing games. All of us got down from time to time. It is actually kind of hard to be dirty and tired and far from home and very wet. We brought a lot of candy. We took breaks whenever anyone asked for one. When we were actually riding, we could go around 10 miles per hour. If you can do that a  30- 50 mile day is really only 3 to 5 hours of pedaling out of like 14 hours of daylight. We also sometimes rode very slowly for many hours. But we knew we definitely had time for all those breaks and slow miles and we leaned into them and enjoyed them. In one rainstorm, Marko kept pulling over to move turtles off the trail. It's not what I would do, but it's actually a pretty thoughtful act. We spent the days exploring river banks and reading historic signs and telling each other stories. At night, we would light a campfire if we could, and read aloud. We suffered from a lot of bug bites and a few cases of road rash, and nobody can believe this, but we were not sore at all. I think because we never rode too hard, or maybe because it felt like we were constantly getting on and off our bikes. 

Pedaling towards your home is very motivating. Every rotation a little bit closer. Beyond offering delicious snacks, we didn't bribe the kids. The reward was finishing, and doing it together, and we all definitely feel really good about that. 

7.20.2022

Soft Launch on a New School Year

"School" starts July 1 for us, and by start, it means we file some papers with our local district and begin logging our activities. Max is joining the official roster this year as he is now at the age where school is compulsory. Our homeschool style has largely become to follow interests, with lots of backwards documenting on my part, and a healthy sprinkle of word study and arithmetic to fill in gaps and promote strong literacy and math skills for everybody.


Max and Marko just finished the Phantom Tollbooth with M and loved taking the quizzes on the SparkNotes website. Max is working on math in Khan Academy, reading lots of Cat Kid and Dogman and learning to ride his bicycle safely in a group and on the street. He is really into making paper airplanes and does a lot of age-appropriate creative writing....lists and plans and notes to us. As long as he keeps writing on his own and shows improvement with spelling and handwriting, I will not do any formal curriculum in that subject. 

Marko is at tree camp this week and doing lots of interesting things like working in the tree nursery and setting bait on wildlife cameras. He reports that they have to write things down in a little notebook they were give, so I'm hoping that will come home and I can do some additional writing with him about that experience. He's getting a lot better at swimming in deep water and diving and holding his breath. Organizing gaming time with his friends, both virtually and IRL, is a priority for him. He reads a lot. Of all the kids, he is the least enthusiastic about anything school-ish, but I'm finding if I observe him, I can see lots of ways that he is developing math and vocabulary skills. He's also very intuitive about geography.

Laurel is starting 7th grade and working on her sixth grade math book to keep preparing for pre-algebra and higher level math. When she feels like she is ready, we will enroll her in some kind of accredited algebra class. This might not be for six months or a year. She writes a lot for fun, and enjoys meeting monthly with her aunts in a virtual book club. She is currently working on building a list of literature to read through with them this year. We will use some Brave Writer Arrow guides as well as Core Knowledge Series assignments and prompts, and maybe some Spark Notes. Some of the titles I'm excited about include Atlas of the Heart, The Nerviest Girl in the World and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She started riding horses again and is working on jumping at a canter. 

M is ramping up at a new job, doing a ton of house painting and other home maintenance things, and learning to build circuits from scratch. I'm working on a Coursera course on UX Design, and recently completed my safety certificate in flat water boating for Girl Scouts. Now I can take the scouts out on a lake in kayaks or paddle boards without having to hire a guide. 

As a family, we're working on planning together more. As the kids get older it's easy to just go off in a million different directions and get busier and busier without really having a purpose behind our activities. FOMO is a strong force, and there are many things competing for your attention these days. We know that having rest days built in and lots of "margins" between social situations is key for our health and happiness. "Lovingly holding each other accountable" has become a catch phrase. Writing things down a marker board helps us to 1) set a reasonable number of action items in a day and 2) finish what we started out intending to do. 

6.23.2022

What are you doing out there anyway?

What are you doing out there anyway?


Sometimes, I just want to exchange pleasantries with a stranger at a gas station pump

Browse the local authors shelf at a library I’ll never go into again

Collect acorns that look so different from the ones on my street, but will sprout into magnificent oak trees nonetheless

Watch a sunrise over a different urban roofline

Order beignets instead of crullers


This time, we couldn't stop staring at the bridges

Marveling at how many there are, in every direction, crossing ravines and valleys, bays and marshes

Wondering if they were new or just recently painted

Holding a collective breath as we crossed, and they held fast every time,

Safe passage through our curiosity


Home looks different through traveler’s eyes

That scent will hit you when you turn the key and open the door for the first time in a week, a month, a year.

But pay close attention, because it only stands out for a few short minutes.

You can see your life as a stranger would, which mostly ignites gratitude, but may also spur you to finally patch that crack in the back stoop, move the chair to a better spot by the window, exchange pleasantries with a neighbor you’ve known for a decade at the gas station down the block. Bask in familiarity. Appreciate that the market has your favorite brand of milk. Enjoy the incremental change of a sunset from the same spot each evening.


So what am I doing out there anyway? Is it for the adventure or the homecoming?