Kansas!

We made it to Kansas! It felt like a big goal to drive over 1,000 miles in three days, but it happened without too much stress. We didn't get an early start on any of the days, and ended up pulling into the campgrounds just before sunset each night. We had general goals of where to get to each night, but we shifted these a bit, based on weather, which was not great. We joked about "following the brown signs" since we have stayed at state parks every single night. The first night we got a late start from Pittsburgh and even managed a last minute visit to M's parents on our way out of town. Not on the way at all, but it still worked out. We made it across Ohio and stayed at Hueston Woods State Park. The second night, we made it to Saint Louis and stayed in Cuivre River State Park. And then finally on Sunday, we pulled into Kanopolis State Park in Kansas, where we stayed for 3 nights, so M could work and we could rest a little bit. Just as we arrived, another homeschooling family pulled into our loop! They were traveling east, so it was fun to have playmates and someone to talk about curriculum and schedules. On Wednesday, they headed east and we moved over to Lake Scott State Park, still in Kansas, with a pit stop in Hays to do laundry and buy some beer from Defiance Brewery. 

State parks are definitely our preference. Being able to hike and run directly from the campsite is very convenient. It did require driving 20-30 miles off the interstate, which obviously adds miles and time, but state parks are pretty cheap to stay in, even if you get hookups (and super cheap if you don't). This time of year is great for birding and looking at wildflowers. Since it's before Memorial Day, sites were easy to come by. We gambled a bit with cell service, which is important for M to be able to work, but it was ok at each place. 

Kansas is beautiful....mostly flat, but with interesting canyons. It's very empty of people and sprawl. When driving we passed a lot of corn and wheat fields, cattle grazing, wind turbines and oil wells. I have never spent time in Kansas, so I really wanted to come here and check it out. The kids are unimpressed with the scenery when we're driving, but did like to hike in the state parks. Lake Scott has the northernmost pueblo ruin ever discovered and that, along with the 1890s homestead they have preserved here, helped us to answer our big question, "Who lived here before now?" The question always leads us to wonder why they came, what they did and why they don't live there anymore. Peeling back the layers of history is always a little complicated.

Having rested in Kansas, we're about ready to take off on another big drive weekend, going through Colorado to get into Utah, where we will hang out next week.

Road Trip Prep

It's T minus 2 days until we leave, and for all the experience we have packing for trips, and all the time I have put into making lists over the past few months, I still feel like I'm forgetting stuff. 

Do not google, "road trip activities for kids" . . . it just stressed me out more with the lists like 40 THINGS TO PACK FOR YOUR KIDS TO KEEP THEM BUSY. I cannot have 40 things rolling around in the car, and no, I'm not letting my kids draw on the windows with markers. (Although if I did give them markers, at least one of them would occupy himself for a very long time trying to figure out how to write fart in reverse so that other drivers could read it.) Markers dry out too fast. Crayons melt if the car gets hot. Colored pencils for life. 

More important than printing road sign bingo cards is setting intention for this trip. We want to spend time together and have fun. We want to see new places and learn about who has been there before us. We want to run on trails and meet up with a few friends and family and try all the regional fast food. 

Trips like these, during which we have to do a certain amount of work and school and vehicle maintenance, are not the same as taking a vacation trip. We have to balance a certain amount of opportunistic sight-seeing, with exercise, sleep, downtime, chores and work. 

The elephant in the room is the pandemic. Traveling with an RV is a pretty easy way to maintain distance from others, but leaving our state after staying home for much of the past year feels weird. 

Quantifying

We're putting on the finishing touches on our portfolios and wrapping up all the obligatory paperwork for the school year. 

The lines are blurring between active learning and the quiet pondering that happens after, or before. There are things that look like nothing at first glance, which actually turn out to be huge developmental leaps. Sometimes what the kids pursue on their own is way better than any of the lessons where adults show up to teach them. It's a little hard to know what to include in the portfolio. Which part of the day was school? 

If I've learned anything from the past two years, it's to expand the margins. Put lots of space in between activities. Do. Not. Rush.

Max disappears sometimes and I will find him wandering alone in the backyard, telling a story to himself (or the trees? or the universe?). He started to crave this alone-time to work through his own thoughts and imaginary scenarios, maybe to break away from the worlds that Marko and Laurel create. 

We started a routine this year we called "Max reads 5 books" (original, I know). We each have to read to him and he reads to one of us, his choice. A very simple daily task, but with many layers. M usually reads to the kids at night. This winter it was Cat Kid Comic Club over and over again, when they were not reading terrifying Norse myths, or memoirs about ultra-running. (The kids loved Born to Run.) Laurel and Marko read graphic novels to him. Pokemon and Minecraft, mostly. I read picture books, the ones with lyrical text that rolls off my tongue, that I read about on literacy blogs. Or sometimes a few pages from one of our references books. He reads Cat Kid Comic Club to us. We have all grown to love the characters of Cat Kid Comic Club.

Marko and Max split off more and more to play, where it used to be Laurel and Marko. They drag home sticks and logs, whittle them down to spears, try to make bows and arrows, fold hundreds of paper airplanes, play board games, arrange stuff animals, create elaborate scenes out of legos and construct forts. They read their Highlights and Cricket magazines carefully and I often see them doing whatever craft or recipe or project was in the magazine. 

Laurel is more fun for me to do stuff with now. We can ride bikes or go on walks and match our pace. We chat and listen to music during chores. We can wear each other's shoes. She can go off with her friends now more and more. They go on walks together, or paint each other's nails. 

Quantifying all the areas of growth feels incomplete without including these examples of not-school.

#CamperLife Trial Runs Part 1 and 2

We just finished our second of two shake-down trips to test out our camper's systems after a winter in storage, and to try out some recently purchased equipment. The first weekend was at Laurel Hill State Park and the second was at Hyner Run State Park. These are two places that we love and know very well, so it was fun to see some familiar sights and faces. We've been going up to Hyner Run in the spring for many years and the same mother-daughter camp host team is always there. Laurel Hill is our go-to spot for a quick weekend getaway since it's only about an hour from where we park our camper. There were days of nice weather on both trips, but it's not particularly warm yet, and we had rain or snow on both trips. At Laurel Hill we had full hookups and flushed and sanitized the tanks, watched a movie on our dvd player and baked cake in our convection oven. At Hyner, we had no hookups, but there is a water spigot in the park where we could fill up our fresh water tank. The solar panels worked great to keep our batteries charged up, even camped in a hemlock grove in a holler, as we were. The waste tanks were pretty full by day 4, though. We could have stretched it to another night, but only if we were really careful and nobody took a shower. The propane tank powered the furnace, water heater and refrigerator without problems. We did have a spare tank with us, but didn't need it. I don't think we'll carry an extra tank when we drive to California, but we need a way of reliably measuring what is left. M just found a scale you can use, which should be pretty accurate. Still, if we were in a sunny place, I think it would be pretty easy to keep the fridge going on battery setting if we had our solar panels set up. 

Space is tight in the rPod. We all fit, but everything must be carefully evaluated for volume and weight. We got some synthetic down blankets to replace the piles of fleece we had before. I moved the dishes to a lower shelf so the kids can reliably help with washing and putting away. I got a new puzzle and a special felt roll-up puzzle keeper. Books and art supplies will be our downfall...the kids somehow always sneak in 5 or 6 enormous hardcover books AFTER we've already checked their bags. (And insert a mental note that Max always needs at least twice the number of pants as the other kids.) I took the freezer insert out of the refrigerator. It doesn't really hold that much anyway, and it's so much easier to store tall things like milk without it. Who needs ice? Haha. 

Sometimes the less you bring, the easier it is for the kids to entertain themselves. When we went to Hyner, we had no power...no video games, no tv, no endless supply of eBooks on an iPad. The kids went fishing, reread the few books they brought, played Uno, went hunting for wildflowers and played hide and go seek. We all went to bed at the same time and M read out loud from his book. I forgot to bring paper so they carefully tore out pieces from Max's notebook when they all wanted to draw. There were three big chunks of stump that the boys dragged around to make obstacle courses. It's actually nice to have a small amount of stuff. Dishes don't take long when you only have five plates and one pot. 

We are getting better at working through the "pain points." For instance, travel days go much better if we stop for an hour for every two-three hours of driving. Playing a podcast or audiobook while everyone gets dressed keeps it calmer during the chaos that happens when we open up 5 suitcases at once (and it's totally crazy until we can get everything stuffed back into the underbed storage). We need to find some way to tame the shoes. 

We're Done!

Well, not exactly, but we did discover that we have logged the required 180 days of instruction required by the state. We started in July and typically logged 5 or 6 days a week, with several large breaks throughout the year. I made recording forms that have a reading list on the back and a grid of required subjects and days of the month on the other. It's pretty easy to check off subjects if we keep up with it on a daily or weekly basis. I added "fill out homeschool log" to the list of things that have to be done before tv/video games, and this was enormously helpful in shifting the responsibility of logging to the kids. We use a lot of digital resources like Epic Books and Libby, so if we forget stuff, it's pretty easy to go back and add it later. We review the sheet monthly and then tuck it in a file box along with any work we want to save for the portfolios. 

We do have a few more things to work on. Laurel has to take her math final and a standardized test. Marko needs to finish his handwriting book and work on the final revision and editing of an essay about Shadow. Both of the older kids will write a letter to the evaluator describing their challenges and triumphs of the past year. We did this last year and the evaluator gave us good feedback. Hopefully we can meet with the same person this year. It does feel good to have a system in place that works for us and to not have stressed about meeting the basic requirements.

Things that were so great this year that it was a pleasure to have them in our schedule and we will definitely keep doing :

Poetry teatime

Exercising with the neighbors

Laurel's virtual book club with her aunts

Outschool class for Max

Brave Writer Arrow guides for literature study

Brave Learner subscription for my own professional development

Things that seem like they are good enough to keep doing:

Spectrum + Khan Academy for math study

Duolingo

Girl Scouts

Things to improve for next year: 

Grade level reading - I've taken a "backwards planning" approach, where the kids follow their interests and I kind of trust that we will cover all the topics. We have What Your Fifth/Second Grader Needs to Know books, which they periodically read from. They do learn new things, but it feels tedious, not exciting. I think I need to plan some deeper dives into content to make it more exciting. 

Foreign language study - everybody loves clicking through Duolingo, but nobody can hold anything beyond a basic conversation. 

Making new friends - it's time to look for some homeschooling buddies. The pandemic definitely hampered this over the past year. Luckily, we have next door neighbors who were basically homeschooled this past year, but they will be going back and my kids need to meet some new people.

Happy Easter! Still a pandemic...

Well, it's been over a year of living during a global pandemic, and the holidays keep ticking past. It's super strange to not see our extended families, but we have managed to have a good time by ourselves...and developed some new traditions along the way. 

Several people sent little treats and cards for the kids. I made a dutch baby pancake with Cracker Barrel apples and whipped cream, which always gets the kids out of bed. 

I made a hilariously difficult egg scavenger hunt for the kids with "Easter Surprises" at the end. It took them over an hour to get through it! I hid clues in eggs directing them to the next hiding spot, and they had to move all around the house, and then use the letters written on all the eggs to figure out a secret phrase, which was a hint to the final hiding spot. M bought each kid a new headlamp and an exercise tracker watch. They loved the watches and checked up on their progress of steps the whole day. Marko was aggressively logging steps and ended up with over 17,000! We'll see if that keeps up. I couldn't find peanut free chocolate this year, so we mostly skipped candy, except for Peeps.  My neighbor's brother baked us a beautiful box of cookies and pastries, so nobody felt deprived for not having a candy filled Easter basket. We dyed eggs last week and read all the gospel stories about the trial and death of Jesus. Today we did the traditional egg cracking contest (my egg prevailed!) and watched the Pope's mass on TV.  We played soccer with our neighbors and chatted on the phone with some of our family. We ate leftover jambalaya and cold pizza. Overall, it was a pretty low-stress but also celebratory day. The sunshine definitely helped.

Books and Movies and Takeout

Day of rest! I actually felt like I really rested from work today. I made a dutch baby pancake with apples fried in butter and cinnamon for breakfast. It really puffed up today. It rained hard all morning, which did not stop the kids from playing outside with the neighbors. They dug some holes in the yard and got extremely wet. They are still working through the bottles of bubbles that Marko bought everyone last week. They like to blow a whole bunch at once and swing at them with tennis rackets. I stayed inside and read a book almost all day. M went for a run. We ordered food from the Turkish restaurant down the street for dinner and took a short walk to pick it up. 

After dinner, we split up...kids downstairs watching Clone Wars and M and I went to the attic to watch Nomadland. I loved the movie. Frances McDormand is very convincing in the role, and the tension between the nomads and those concerned for their well-being was one I very much recognized.

So, that's it. I set a goal to write a blog post every day in February and I did it! 

Girl Scout Outing

We have somehow managed to keep our Girl Scout troop going for an entire year of pandemic restrictions! We alternate virtual meetings and in-person outdoor activities. Today we met for some bike riding at a local bike track. It was raining at first, but luckily it cleared up quickly. The girls had fun just riding bikes around, and we briefly chatted about our upcoming service projects....seed balls for a community pollinator garden.  

Marko had another Scratch class today, and Max had a Pokemon battle with Uncle Pete via Zoom. Uncle Pete won! Laurel went on a walk with her friend who lives in our neighborhood.

I made some progress working on a door that needs to be rehung, and I took my evening walk early...while the sun was still up! I went to the cemetery today and there were lots of deer hanging out and the birds were very noisy and active.

Closing Out the School Month

We have school "months" more than we have years or quarters. We do not do any grades. I will record percent mastery for things like a math test where you can definitively count correct answers, but otherwise, we are mostly just collecting completed work to demonstrate mastery. For a while I tried to plan quarters or seasons, but I am best at setting reasonable goals for a four week period. Yesterday I spent a little time reading over the Pennsylvania standards for social studies to see where we are at. Current events are certainly providing a lot of fodder for discussions about "identifying the requirements to vote in local, state and national elections" or "explaining the effects of physical systems within a community." 

Laurel finished her last Brave Writer Book Club discussion. She enjoyed it a lot. Unfortunately the classes are all sold out for the rest of the term so she can't take another one. We will go back to reading the next novel and using the arrow guide as a family. 

We also completed our art project from Art With Mrs. Filmore. Marko picked the lily pad project for this month. She lays out all the step by step instructions and even talks about the elements of art (line, shape, color, form, texture) and some art history (Monet). I had previously gathered up Modge Podge, glue, scissors, paint, tissue paper. I was a little worried we wouldn't get to it this month, but then I decided to just focus on it today and it snowballed into a really good lesson!

I pulled out my old photo album of the trip to France I made with my aunt, because we actually went to Giverny and saw the water lilies in person. I also found our copy of Linea in Monet's Garden and a big coffee table book about Impressionism. This book actually had a really interesting introduction about how the original "Impressionist" artists got together and exhibited their work and how it was a big shift from the former state sponsored art organizations that were the norm. All the videos from the PBS Art Assignment have already laid the groundwork for us that art doesn't just occur in a vacuum....it reflects cultural and political events. It was interesting to read a little more about what was going on in France at the time. I didn't know about the Parisian rebellion against the Prussians which resulted in 20,000 dead civilians. 

We tried to think of places we have seen water lilies and remembered a huge patch of them in Black Moshannon State Park. However, I think those are actually American lotus. I found a passage in my Incredible Wild Edibles that describes how indigenous people ate various parts of those plants, but that they have more recently been targeted as "invasives" that should be eliminated (mostly by recreational fisherman who have boat engines that get tangled in the thick roots). While we were going down various rabbit holes about French socialists and wild edibles, we were painting with concentrated water colors and applying tissue paper with modge podge and using a salt finish on our painted water. 

The art itself turned out really well. The kids had to use a variety of techniques. We all learned something new about art or foraging or Prussia. We all have questions that remain unanswered, which to me is the mark of a really great lesson. 

Road Trip!

Splitting up the kids creates new and wonderful (and peaceful) dynamics. Today I took Marko and Laurel on a mini-road trip and Max stayed home with M. The most notable difference was apparent to me immediately...the car was so quiet! Laurel and Marko were both instructed to bring as much schoolwork as they thought they could accomplish, plus recreational reading. I also told them to pack snow clothes. We headed for Elk County to deliver some Girl Scout cookies to Cousin Sam, and then went to Parker Dam State Park. 

Marko didn't believe me about the snow. Our snow mostly melted overnight in the rain. He didn't even pack a coat. So when we got to the park, he was very surprised to see a foot of snow still on the ground. It was pretty warm out, though, and very sunny, so he still ran around. Laurel had listened and was wearing her lace up snow boots. I brought our Coleman stove to heat up burritos. I flew my kite over the frozen lake. I love being in the Pennsylvania forest and seeing snow-covered ridges boosted my spirits greatly. 

Meanwhile, back at home, M and Max baked a cake, did some skateboarding and went to zoom meetings. Max had his zoom science class. Max loves being 1:1 with a parent and he will entertain himself for long periods of time with Scratch or Epic books. He still needs help with a lot of things....mostly reaching what he needs and fixing meals, but he's much less screech-y when he's alone. 

We listened to the entire Galentine's Day playlist (think lots of Beyonce) and looked for signs of elk. Laurel worked through several pages of math fractions. Marko mostly read books. They ate our popcorn snack without spilling it everywhere. On the way home, we got a message that Laurel's new glasses were in so we stopped by to pick them up. 

Overall it was a lovely and relaxing day.