2023

Year 5 of homeschool is well underway as we wrap up another calendar year! I am grateful that everyone is healthy and doing well. 

2023 was pretty crazy for us. The biggest thing was moving out and selling the house we had lived in for 14 years. Our neighbors on each side also moved. It was absolutely the right decision for us, and thanks to our amazing realtor, the sale itself went pretty smoothly. However, the way things all went down was pretty sudden and unpleasant. Thankfully we have some good activities and community to keep things feeling normal even when everything felt topsy-turvy. We rented an apartment to stay in until we find another house, but to be honest, everyone is pretty happy here and we aren't in a rush. We aren't too far from our old neighborhood, so other than not being able to walk into the park or cemetery anymore, we are a quick drive from most of our activities. We can see the river from from every window and the local library branch has amazing staff and programming. 

We went on a really nice trip to the Paw Paw festival in Ohio this fall. All my kids can officially swim and the pool is much more fun now. The kids are on the team at the climbing gym, Laurel participated in her first horse show this year, Marko started piano lessons and had his first recital (playing Jingle Bells) and Max recently celebrated his birthday with his first big friend party at a trampoline park. M finally got his third piece of pie from the Baker Ultra - they run the 150 mile trail in 50 mile sections each year and for many reasons, he had missed the third section multiple times. I am deeply immersed in the unpaid and not-very-prestigious work of a middle aged mother/daughter/sister/friend who homeschools. I give rides and babysit, refill Little Free Libraries, make snacks, explain algebra and sing nursery rhymes, read, collect poetry, and listen. After navigating a series of crises over the past few years, I'm grateful for the low-stakes flow of daily life now. I imagine I will get bored of this soon, but for now, working in my kitchen while watching the river flow is pretty amazing.

Reflection on the 4th Year and Kicking Off Year 5!

Year 4 started off with an amazing family bikepacking trip and ended with us making an unexpected move out of the house we lived in for 14 years. We are really happy in our new place as it is much quieter, has a view of water from every single window and is next to the bike trail. We wrapped up the last school year as we were moving so basically just took the last two months as summer break but it is definitely time to launch a new round of learning. (Side note: how amazing is it that I can adjust the school year to fit around life, instead of the other way around?)

Right now I'm thinking a lot about how to use space, not just in our apartment, but in the new common areas we have available to us. There is outdoor space with lawn chairs, a swimming pool, and an indoor clubhouse with couches. One priority is to split the boys up a little more and make sure they each have their own classes and some one on one time with M and me. I want to do a lot more reading aloud with Max, have more art supplies available, and revisit the idea of Morning Invitations, where you plan little activities to do right around the breakfast table. We have a regular schedule of more structured co-op classes and less structured friend meetups for hikes and playgrounds. I'm really looking forward to the programming at our new local library branch because the librarians seem great and there is even an athletic club with a swimming pool in the same building. 

The older two kids are looking for more independence and while it feels a bit odd to be living at a shopping mall, the walkability is actually pretty good and they can go off on their own to do shopping or hang out in the little town square area, or walk the bike path. Our old next door neighbors are getting ready to move back to Canada and that's going to be hard. The kids literally grew up together. (It makes me think of me and my cousins.)  I wish we had been able to give them all one last summer together, but the situation with our house was getting pretty bad and it feels like the right decision.

Halfway Through Year 4 of Homeschooling

The thing about homeschooling is that at first I thought it was about curriculum and schedules, but have since come to understand it as being about relationships, about really sinking into trust with my kids and believing them when they say they want or need something. 

This is not to say that I give them everything that they say they want or need, especially instantly at the moment they bring it up. Many things feel urgent to people who live in the moment. But I at least listen and consider it, and if I can't make it happen, then I will tell them why. This has also freed me to say what I want or need, and in a similar fashion, make it happen if possible. 

Homeschooling over the years has become more of a lifestyle for the entire family and less about what my kids do for a set number of hours per day. I do keep a list of Daily and Weekly tasks, and we use math and handwriting workbooks for some of this. But our social studies, science, art and music study is interest/project based, so people are very inclined to work a great deal on something that they've set out to learn, and there's very little enforcing I need to do. Mainly I feel like a librarian...answering questions and pointing people in the direction of resources. M is also one of those constantly-learning people (and would be whether or children went to school or not) so there's always something he's working on. 

I'm thinking about what label I would put us under. Unschoolers? Home educators? Brave Learners? (from Julie Bogart's book) Self-directed learners? 

Prioritizing physical and mental health first is making a clear difference for us, though. I can especially see how beneficial it is for teens to get enough sleep. Also, it's not a bad life to wake up refreshed and excited to continue on what you were working on the day before.

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!)

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. 

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). 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.