Sick Day

It's bound to happen occasionally...somebody is sick and you have to cancel plans. Nobody here is very sick, but there are enough symptoms to stay home. I appreciate participating in a community where people take this seriously. This is a major bummer because Thursdays are the one day we have in person classes for everybody and we meet at a lovely park outside of the city and then go for a horse riding lesson after. It's been a wonderful routine this fall. M is out of town on a business trip right now, but normally he would be baking pizza from scratch so that it is ready when we get home from our day out. 

I'm taking the opportunity to do some fall deep cleaning around the house, and letting the kids relax and read and watch tv and play video games. We have finished a lot of our goals for the month...wrapping up the Dart and Arrow guides and choosing our next novels. Laurel is working her way through the history textbooks...currently responding with a fair amount of outrage at the child labor practices of the Industrial Revolution. Max is reading so fluently! We have a habit of five books a day for him. He listens to a story, article or poem from each member of the family and then chooses one person to read out loud to. Once in a while I pull out my Wilson Reading System cards to do a little phonics/spelling, but he is mostly just picking it up naturally. Sometimes I despair over Marko's reluctance to write anything by hand, but he is working on an extensive Google Doc that he shared with his Minecraft buddies, so when push comes to shove, he actually can produce something. 

I've been listening to a lot of Sue Patterson podcasts and thinking about how experts can and should be used in learning...and whether or not an elementary teacher, or even a secondary teacher in a school would fall into this category. I certainly have known lots of teachers who were experts in pedagogy, because that's the majority of what they teach to early childhood or elementary teachers. Back before NCLB, teachers had more freedom to do units on topics of their choosing and that's where you would see their expert knowledge or interest. Secondary teachers were more likely to have a passionate interest in a subject. I will never forget Mr. Brown and his collection of bones. I only had him for homeroom, but I learned so much about the skeletons of local woodland creatures in those 15 minutes. Not that he was teaching a lesson, he was just boiling and assembling skeletons and we would ask questions because holy-crap-teachers-were-weird-in-the-90s. He had a definite passion for anthropology. But on the other end, I was hired to be a math teacher purely because I was the most qualified candidate, having taken Calculus in community college 10 years earlier. I just had to take a test and BAM I was certified. So in this century, you never know what sort of "expert" your kid's teachers are, and unschoolers love to point that out. 

I hesitate to climb aboard that train, though because there are a lot of Americans running around saying they did their research and basically ignoring or disputing what actual professional and life-long researchers are putting out there. Twitter is a place where I often see people very convincingly write about a topic but sometimes it turns out they are missing some important nuances. Still it gets shared 1.1million times and becomes part of the American canon.

Somewhere there are facts, right?

Confront Your Fears

We went to Titusville over the weekend to volunteer at the Oil Creek 100. I thought it would be a really good thing for us to 1) see some friends we haven't seen in a while and 2) get back to an ultra to clear the bad mojo from our last experience. I'm not sure when/if M will run one of these events again, and I didn't want Western States to be our last experience at an ultra as a family.

Back in 2015 (which now feels like a million years ago), OC was the first hundred that M attempted. I have really fond memories of that weekend. The weather was gorgeous, my parents watched Laurel and Marko (I was pregnant with Max) and I was free to wander (waddle) around and enjoy the scenery, weather and general good vibes of this race. Some of our friends came up to to keep me company and cheer for M. This is when I first met Paul and Jeff, who came to pace M. Being new to ultras, I was blown away by the efforts of the volunteers, who were cooking up a storm and keeping up a festive vibe. The forest was a magical, technicolor rainbow. M ran well. We slept blissfully in the back of our 4Runner in the parking lot. 

M was thrilled to get his first belt buckle. For some people that might have satisfied their urge...you want to see if you can do something hard, so you do it, and then that's it. But M genuinely enjoyed the experience, and went on to run a lot of races over the next few years. Like, a LOT. I think he did ten hundreds in about 3 years, plus many more 50K/100K/50mi races. Ultra/trail running became a part of our family culture. I started a weekly running club for kids in our local park. Evening walks/runs with our next door neighbors helped the kids sleep better. Our travel became very oriented towards finding trails to explore or races to run. We developed real friendships with M's running buddies. The seasonal rhythm of our years were marked by certain events. Always Hyner in the spring. Oil Creek in the fall. Volunteering at an aid station at the Rachel Carson in June. The pandemic pretty much killed races for a year, but they were starting up again and I think all of us were happy about that.

The weather was terrible at OC this year.  Pretty much the complete opposite of Western States....cold, rainy, epic mud. We weren't too bothered by the conditions, as we had a cozy tent to sleep in and were volunteering in the aid station, under cover. It was definitely a slogfest for the runners, though. It was great to see some friends, and I also had a chance to talk in person to a lot of people who messaged me on Facebook over the summer.  It's really different to go to a race when you aren't waiting for a runner. When the boys got tired, I just took them to the tent and put them to bed. So many people dropped out of the race, that there wasn't a lot to do at our aid station. But it definitely still had that ultra vibe. People huddled around the fire all night, the kids made signs, somebody had a cow bell. 

I was worried that a runner would get hurt or sick, and how that would feel if the kids saw it. I was worried we would feel like we didn't have a place there anymore. But that wasn't how it was at all. It just felt like we were home. 

Got the car back....again

Shortly after returning from Reno the second time, the transmission in our Yukon broke. For reasons related to an internet misunderstanding over the location of a horse riding lesson, I was with the kids way out in the country at the time and after failing to get AAA to send a tow truck, and also failing at getting an Uber to drive us to Pittsburgh (basically expected, as I only have one review and it's from Reno), I limped the car into a dealership in the town of Washington, PA. 

There is a classic children's book called That's Good! That's Bad! (Rabbit hole alert, I got a kick out of the reviews on Good Reads, people really have strong negative opinions of this book! But I remember my students loving it.) The story shows a ridiculous series of events, many of which seem bad on the surface, but then turn out to be good, and vice versa. 

I find this to be extremely relatable.

Anyway, I rolled in there just before they closed for the day and at the exact moment I was describing my transmission woes to the service tech, another customer came in to return the keys to the dealer loaner car. My children were being extremely well behaved while simultaneously looking a bit weary, which made them all the more charming. Before I knew it, we were back on the road back to Pittsburgh in a brand new Buick. (That's Good) M had some homemade pizza and a cold beer waiting for me when I got home. (Also Good)

It took 3 weeks for them to get the transmission in (That's Bad), but it was covered by the warranty (That's Freaking Fantastic, actually). And now we are left to wonder if we somehow toasted the transmission by towing, although it is well within the weight parameters and we never experienced any problems while actually towing. The mechanics said sometimes they just fail at this mileage and there is some sort of advisory issued by GMC on this particular transmission. We could sell it while it's in good shape and get a truck, but I would definitely miss the 8 seats, and the fact the Yukon fits in our garage. To tow, or not to tow, that is the question. 

I try to make good decisions and exercise reasonable caution. But life happens and something will happen. It might be bad, but also good. Or it might be good, but also bad. 

Refining It

I am enjoying this third year of homeschool since I feel like we have a good general framework and I can focus on refining habits and routines to make it work better for us. 

"Closing out" a month of homeschool, for us, means finishing filling out a reading log and a checklist of subjects covered, choosing work to save for the portfolio, adding photos to a digital album, and shredding all of the work we are done with and don't want to save. (Some of my children find it very satisfying to shred their work.) This has made compiling portfolios at the end of year a breeze. I look at the things we planned to cover but didn't, and decide if they should be bumped ahead to some future time or abandoned altogether. Over the past two and a half years I have drastically reduced my expectations for the quantity of work I plan for the children to do, but I still sometimes over plan. Writing the intended plans on paper has been very useful for keeping to reasonable amounts of work. Quality over quantity every time. If I am running out of space on my planning calendar, I know I'm planning too much. I am actually on my last sheet of blank monthly calendars, so I need to decide if I want to stick with the wall version, or buy a book with monthly spreads. The wall calendar is nice to have posted when we are home, but it's too bulky to take in the camper. 

A lot of our textbooks are digital at this point and I struggle with the amount of screen time this requires, although I love that I have access to literally everything on my phone through the Google Classroom app, and never have to print stuff out. The downside is that whenever you open a computer or iPad, the temptation is strong to check email, chat with grandparents, mess around with the Google Doodle....it's a real struggle for ALL of us. A few months ago we turned off pretty much all the filters, because they blocked out a lot of useful content, and I found myself spending half the day fiddling with settings. Now there is more work in paying attention to what the kids are doing on the computers, but this is time well spent in my opinion. 

I continue to love, love, love Brave Writer. There is a companion website to the products called Brave Learner and it is basically professional development for people homeschooling kids in their care. Last month the topic of video games really made me reconsider some of my long-held beliefs. I also like that, through using Brave Writer, I have come to understand home education/homeschooling as something the whole family participates in and not something I am doing to the kids. One thing that often floats into my mind is how different a teacher I would be with this current mindset, and also wondering how much of the pleasure of education is incompatible with the mechanics of school.

Is Homeschooling a Lot of Work?

This question comes up a lot. It doesn't really feel like it at the moment. It actually feels like the lazy way out sometimes. Today is really rainy and gray. Everybody slept in and is in a little bit of a funk. But so what? Eat a leisurely breakfast and get started when you are ready. Instead of getting far behind when we need a slower day, we have it built in so you always feel like you have a little wiggle room if something goes wrong. Believe me, this approach saved our sanity this summer when everything was going terribly wrong. It is the polar opposite of our pre-pandemic life. I was always yelling at someone to hurry up and stuffing kids into car seats while cursing the constant missing shoe.

Marko has been working on a science unit about plant and animal life cycles, even dipping into hereditary traits a little bit. He's growing some plants from seeds and making observations. Laurel is working through some textbooks on various philosophical time periods. Her thoughts on the Enlightenment are hilarious. 

This month, we've been going to actual in-person classes! The boys started gymnastics in August, and we found a place for Laurel to take horse riding lessons. Laurel and I have Girl Scouts a few times a month. We attend a few virtual classes with our homeschool co-op one day a week and in person classes that take place in a park one day a week. I have been really impressed with the classes, which are all taught by parent volunteers. Marko learned how to make cordage, which is actually very useful to me personally, as I love to make things out of the weeds I chop down in my yard. Laurel is studying American artists. The classes provide a lot of launching points for further study or exploration. As a new family member, I do jobs like cleaning up after, or assisting the teachers. 

We've also been reading Shakespeare and memorizing a few lines. We were able to see a performance of Hamlet that featured an all-female cast. I get all the Shakespeare ideas from Brave Writer on the One Thing page. This is a set of curated activities for lots of different age levels that focuses on one topic. We've also done a month on Sand and a month on Simple Machines. Zero planning on my part, and the kids all seem to get something out of it. Next month is Sports, which will be interesting, as we are not involved in the playing or watching of many popular sports. 

Khan Academy continues to be the most popular math choice for the two older kids. Max plays around on this old play cash register that has a calculator. I don't pay too much attention to the math, since Khan sends weekly reports that show how many minutes they used the site, as well as content that they have mastered. We have two other workbooks they can use if there is no internet, or if they need additional problem sets. 

Things I am going to try and focus on more next month include spelling and grammar for Laurel and Marko, as well as making sure we touch on art, music, anatomy, physiology, civics, fire safety and foreign language....those subjects often seem to get bumped even if I do have something planned. Laurel has specifically requested more 1:1 time with me for her studies, as well as movement breaks throughout the day.

Closing Out the Summer

M and I managed to fly to Reno and drive our car and camper back with good weather and no craziness. It was so uneventful I don't even have much to write about. We were able to stop in Truckee to say hello to some folks at the RV park, and to get one last Truckee Tracks ice cream cone at Little Truckee Creamery, and bought way too many books at Word After Word. The skies were even pretty clear up there, although everything is crispy dry. The smoke was heavy all through the Great Basin, but once we got over the Wasatch it cleared up a lot. We hit a little rain in Wyoming and a little wind in South Dakota, but for the most part it was easy driving and the Yukon handled the Winnebago really well. 

Now that we have our car and camper back, it feels like the summer is officially over. There were some seriously high highs and low lows in this latest chapter. We had some amazing adventures on our road trip and were blessed by so much kindness from family, friends and strangers. 

Fall is coming and some Kidney news

I just logged off the orientation for the homeschool co-op we just joined. I did not plan to join a co-op because I thought we would be traveling to amazing places all fall and winter (I've had my heart set on returning to St. Augustine for years). But after the craziness of this summer, we all thought it might be good to hit pause on the travel-schooling. When I submitted my application to the co-op, M was still on dialysis and even a weekend away seemed impossible. I am happy to report that his kidneys are doing great. He will have a lot of monitoring over the next few months to make sure he's fully recovered, but as for right now, dialysis is a thing of the past and he's free to put salt on his food again (thank goodness). He can even do some light exercising again (also thank goodness for that). Next up is to wean off all the prescription medications he was put on during his hospitalization. 

An Odyssey

Taking the kids to a play has been on my list for a long time, but the pandemic put a damper on this for the last year and a half. Last week, I saw an ad for a production of the Odyssey that was being performed outside. My kids are all very familiar with the story, so I decided to take a chance and bought tickets for all of us to go. It rained all week here, but the skies cleared on the afternoon of the play. We took a picnic dinner to the park and watched a beautiful sunset right before the play started. This version of the Odyssey was told from the perspective of the female characters, and Odysseus was not really portrayed as the hero he usually is. They performed on an ice skating rink and the audience sat on bleachers for a slightly elevated view. There was no intermission and it was almost two hours long, with the final scene involving the entire cast and audience leaving the rink and hiking up a hill to see Odysseus reunite with Penelope. It was amazing! The kids followed every word closely, leaning forward in their seats and laughing and clapping along with the audience. All three kids know the stories from the Iliad and Odyssey pretty well, as well as Greek Mythology in general, so they were well positioned to understand an alternative perspective on the story. I didn't really know anything about the company, Quantum Theatre, but they are known for their progressive story-telling and using unusual spaces for performances. 

To prepare for the play, we read the playbill, which was available as a digital copy before the performance. We looked at the photos of the cast and the characters they were playing, read some reviews of the play and discussed appropriate theater behavior. We did our best to round up some slightly fancier-than-usual clothes, and fixed our hair (helped tremendously by fresh haircuts from Julie). 

In terms of Covid safety, they did say that all cast members were all vaccinated and that unvaccinated people should wear masks. The seats were movable and we were encouraged to "pod" up our seats by moving them closer together and leaving space between parties. The whole thing was outside. 

I could not have asked for better circumstances for a first theater experience, and I'm truly looking forward to going again. 

And So We Walk

Our summer travel itinerary is usually defined by trail races, or training for trail races. Necessary features of a campground for us were always more about the proximity to a minimum of a few thousand acres of state forest than any type of amenity like hookups or cable! Running is life, must find trails. I rolled my eyes sometimes when M would nix a place I thought looked cool because it only had 10 miles of trail. But for the most part, this parameter took us to really beautiful places that had good hiking, fishing, wildlife viewing and less crowded places to camp. On our last road trip we opted to stay 25-50 miles off the freeway and even though this added slightly to the travel time, I would do it again. 

With the race schedule cleared for the foreseeable future, and also the lack of either a travel trailer or vehicle (ours are still parked in Nevada), we have taken to exploring surrounding neighborhoods on foot. Most evenings you can find us walking in the cemetery or up to Squirrel Hill for some Italian ice. A few months ago we bought the kids pedometer watches and they love to see how many steps they can get.

Solo Time With the Kiddos

Like most people, we spent a lot of time together over the past year or two. Some of that was by design, but we got a little more than we bargained for with the pandemic. I dropped Max and Laurel off at my parents' house yesterday and I think it was the first time Max and Marko had been apart in a really long time. They gave each other big hugs and a secret handshake, which I thought was pretty adorable. The reason I dropped those two off was so M and I could hang out with Marko, doing the second of three "solo" nights with the kids. M is cleared for light physical activity and italian ice is renal friendly, so we went for a walk to get some dessert. We also visited the used bookstore and the game shop. The people at the game shop taught Marko and M how to play a new game. We bought Wingspan to try. We played a lot of cards on our road trip, but didn't have any strategic board games with us. When we got back here, we realized with everybody being able to read and do basic math now, we had outgrown a lot of our board games. Luckily (or perhaps dangerously for our budget), we are within walking distance to a very cool game store.

We did a "soft opening" for homeschool this week. We are reading the Dart and Arrow books for this month but only discussing the Juicy Questions. Marko and Laurel started working on the next math course on Khan Academy. I downloaded their social studies and science textbooks and they started reading them and doing a few of the worksheets that come in the teachers guide. We are using the Core Knowledge Series and the entire curriculum is free to download, although we don't really follow it that closely. We are swimming, biking and hiking for exercise. We are doing the activities from Brave Learner's "One Thing," and the theme is simple machines. And of course, we are doing poetry teatime. 

Even if we weren't all recovering from the trauma of M's injury and our subsequent separation and sudden end to our road trip, I would still probably want to ease into homeschool. However, it is a particularly useful approach right now because we are taking a lot of time to rest and relax, cry, and talk about what happened. Alongside that very necessary process, we are slowly adding back in things that we truly enjoy doing for school and hobbies and life. 

I have to constantly remind myself to not rush, to keep the margins around activities empty, to avoid worrying that we aren't doing enough. It can be very hard for me to not compare myself to my friends and their kids, many of whom are doing really cool things with their careers or hobbies, have nicer houses or things, or are planning awesome adventures. JOMO over FOMO (Joy instead of Fear of Missing Out). It is possible to celebrate other people's choices and be really happy for them, without needing to keep up. It sounds a little ridiculous that I struggle with this, because this blog is a testament to all of the awesome in my own life. But for every single thing that I have chosen, I had to give up pursing something else. There are only so many hours in a week, your money only goes so far, your mind can only handle so many inputs.