April Update

Homeschool update? Well, everything is canceled. We planned to drive to Tahoe in June and then loop up through the Pacific Northwest. Hit North Dakota on the way home, a state M and I have never traveled through. We were in search of wild mustangs, high peaks, cool summer temps and a chance to travel again with all those lessons learned from our fall journey. I had so many good recipes to try. Have you heard of powdered butter? Anyway, all the races are canceled so we are staying put until further notice. Maybe forever. A lot of people keep saying "when things go back to normal," but I'm not sure that's a useful expectation to hold right now. This week we are closing out Stella by Starlight, working through an Art Assignment on paper weaving and homecraft, and following our whims of creativity. I've been following a permaculture course and digging a sort of swale/water abatement channel in the backyard. Laurel started ukulele lessons. Marko is building a wooden box and learning to use the drill, screwdriver, hammers, saws and sand paper. Max is experimenting with the synthesizer. M has set up all his guitar pedals and amplifier. Laurel is about 80% proficiency on 4th grade math and expects to finish it up by June. Marko finished the 1st grade math around Christmas time, but continues to practice with addition and subtraction facts. I feel confident that they are at or above grade level in all areas except writing. They produce plenty of comics, shopping lists, thank you cards, newspapers and plays, but getting them to write an essay response to a question does not yield excellent results. I'm pretty satisfied with the overall growth everyone made academically this year, and I feel like we worked out a lot of kinks in our schedule and plans. I have a good idea of what books I want to order at the beginning of the next school year.

The pandemic definitely changed some things for us. We were driving around quite a bit for activities or to visit people....and shopping for groceries almost every day. It has been very nice to do bulk orders from Frankferd Farms and meat and produce shares from Wild Purveyors. We are doing a lot of cooking from scratch and have reduced the garbage we put to the curb by half. Positive changes we hope to carry on.

M and I plan to give them a summer "break" from all subjects except writing. We will give each of them (and us!) a journal and write together every day. I put "break" in quotes because it feels impossible to tease out what is the Home part and what is the School part of our day. I doubt they'll stop learning over the summer. But we aren't going to log into Khan Academy or plan a STEM week or anything. I'm hopeful we'll do a lot of camping, finish more projects around the house, enjoy a bountiful garden, play a lot of music, read captivating books, make art and eat delicious food.