Week 7 ~ Jacob Lawrence, Dance and Geography

My little helper was clearing all of the last few weeks of school papers all over the floor. I need a push sometimes to remember to file their school work.

We had a productive and fun week. The routine is set and we are comfortable with it. We have a nice all around balance going. The kids have spent tons of free time playing their new card game, Magic. It is always a delight to see them getting along so beautifully. They generally get along, but sometimes they just really have a great time together and that is such a blessing.

Dean is really enjoying his new Geography program, Geography Through Art. I think it is intended for a younger crowd so I am adding in reading assignments, research, map work and a meal from the country we are studying. The last two weeks he has been learning about England. He read, Where is Stonehenge. He also created his own model of Stonehenge (it is a partial model because he ran out of clay). He also made a sketch of Big Ben and did some research on Big Ben.

Fish and Chips for our our English dinner

Anne and I have tested all of the coffee shops near where Dean takes his art class each week. This is our favorite one. There is space to spread out, the tea is cheap and we can watch people pass by. It is also right across the street from Dean's class.

Anne is so relieved that her Cecchetti teacher has started teaching the curriculum for level 5 Cecchetti. The next exam isn't until next May, but it is a relief to start learning all of the material. She was all giggles during warm ups this week.

Grandma did her monthly class with the kids. They learned about Jacob Lawrence. Then we went off to the opening of an exhibit of Jacob Lawrence artwork at the Black Mountain College Museum and Art Center. It was great.

Well, it was a great week. We have some real treats planned for next week and a very special opportunity.
Blessings, Dawn

Week 6 ~ Working Our Way Through

Hurricane Florence was worn out by the time she got to us here in the mountains. We only got a few inches of rain and some mild power outages and flooding in our area. Our prayers and hearts go out to those closer to the coast. The devastation is incredible and has affected about half of our state. I used to live in Fayetteville, North Carolina and driven up and down Interstates 40 and 95 hundreds of times. It is shocking to see how badly hit were those areas that are more than a hundred miles inland.

Things have somewhat stabilized for our daughter Goldilocks. We did get some good news that she has been accepted to a great independent living program that she will move into next June. It is a relief to know that she will have somewhere to go after high school. Now to figure out funding from January to June to keep her where she currently is living. She has basically cut us off at the moment and we haven't talked to her in weeks. Her anger (and I think fear of growing up) is overpowering her ability to have any kind of civil relationship with us right now. She wrote us a scathing letter about our imperfect hugs and how we don't do things for her in the exact way she wants them done. Her anger was palatable and over such minor things. It was a typical RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) child letter. As her mother, I will never be able to meet her expectations, because they will change whenever I get close so that she can push me (us) away again. It has been a long, long journey and I am worn out by it.

All that aside, we had a much more productive and calmer week than last. We spent lots of time on biology lessons this week because I want it done. It is a carryover from last year and I am ready to wrap it up and move on to conceptual physics. Hopefully, we will have our hours done in the next three weeks. We are finishing up anatomy next week and then will be ready to review and solidify the most important facts.

We really enjoyed this kit this week.

We enjoyed creating Punnett squares (one of my favorite biology activities), learning about Dolly the sheep (first cloned mammal), studying Mendel and reviewing DNA and animal cells. Our attempts to extract DNA from a banana were unsuccessful. We are going to try with a tomato next week.

Our latest YumYum box arrived from Thailand this time. Most of the snack food was pretty good and we were fascinated by some of the facts. For instance, did you know that monkeys are trained to pick most of the coconuts in the country or that it is tradition to give two Siamese cats to a couple as a wedding gift? We loved the mango and pineapple gummy snacks. The only real loser was the big seaweed roll. We all agreed that it tasted gross.

Can you believe we are already talking plans for the Nutcracker performances at the dance studio?  Anne has been cast as the princess (the same main character role she had last year, but this year she will dance in pointe instead of flat ballet shoes). She also has been cast to dance group dances with the Junior Company as a cat, Pop Rock candy, elastic doll and a Siren (Greek Mythological creature). We are still waiting to see if any roles will come from the Adult Company class she is also taking. Anne is very excited! As for me, I am delighted for her AND blown away that it is time for another season to be underway.

We made it to all classes and completed the majority of the at-home assignments. I am claiming this week as a win.

Blessings, Dawn

Week 5 ~ Just a Rough Week

What is it about week 5 of each school year that tends to be hard? This was one of those weeks that just didn't feel very successful. It was just all around difficult. We struggled all week to get through  lessons and maintain our routines while taking on a full out-of-the-home schedule. Then there is the broken dryer that has been down for several weeks now and dear husband's car troubles which meant extra juggling and driving on my part. Then there is Hurricane Florence who is headed toward us. We are not sure how much she will impact us this weekend. They are predicting that we will get about 6-8 inches, which would certainly make our already high rivers flood and may make next week challenging (but nothing like those are dealing with near the coast ~ our prayers go out to them). Finally, our relationship with our daughter Goldilocks has taken another sad turn. She is safe and we are safe for the moment, but all of those underlying fears for our safety mixed with the desperate feelings we have for her future are very raw this week. We are praying that we make the right choices and moves in this endless life or death chess match with our mentally ill and emotionally unstable daughter.

Dean's homework for art this week ~

Blessings, Dawn

Week 4 ~ Tweaks, Adventures and Mom Helps

We are now at full schedule (at least for the month of September). We may add in one more Cecchetti class in October, but I need to see how everything else is flowing first. I am a bit shocked how smooth things are flowing at the moment. It is still early and the kids attitudes are great. They aren't tired yet.

Mom Helps ~ I love to buy local, but I really need to pull down spending to a minimum if we are going to achieve all of our goals and stay in budget. So this year I am going to be relying a great deal on Walmart's free grocery pickup and Amazon. It will help with time management and keeping down everyone's impulse purchases in our home. We aren't terrible about impulse shopping, but every penny counts. So far, I have pulled our groceries down by about $30 a week and will be able to do even better if I regulate the kids cooking days. Right now I am letting them pretty much pick what they want to make. They have creative and somewhat expensive tastes (expensive compared to my stated goal of making $8 dinners for five most nights, while using organic meat).

Adventures in the Mountains ~ Dear husband had the day off for Labor Day. We decided to scrap lessons and head out to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We just visited one small section. The park is large and we stayed completely on the North Carolina side this time. We visited a gristmill, the Mountain Farm Museum and Clingmans Dome.

They were not very thrilled with the gristmill or the Farm Museum. I got comments like, "How many time do we have to look at old buildings?" and "What do you see in these places, Mom?" However, things picked up when we got a bit more into nature. We didn't see any bears or elk this time. However, we did see lots of wild turkey and some beautiful spider webs. 

We moved on to our hike at Clingmans Dome. It was an intense half a mile climb uphill. I speed walk about a dozen miles each week, and this really was rougher than expected. It isn't even wheelchair accessible because of the steep grade. We stopped along the incline to climb rocks because my children really are mountain goats. 

The tower was in the middle of a pine forest and it smelled like Christmas. The scent was wonderful and Dean and I were in heaven. We both love the smell of a fresh cut Christmas tree. This place was delightful to our noses. 

Our last adventure for the day was to find the "Road to Nowhere" and wander through its tunnel. There was a lake and dam the government made years ago that destroyed several mountain coves and villages. The families who were displaced were promised a road that would allow them to return to their ancestral land and tend to the 28 cemeteries that were not flooded by the creation of the lake. The government started the project but never completed about 20 miles of road. The road just stops and turns into a trail, making it impassable for the elderly or anyone who isn't able to walk or ride a horse for 20 miles. It has been upsetting to our area for decades now. While researching our adopted children's birth history, we discovered that some of their family members relocated from Cades Cove when the government moved them to make way for the national park to Cable Cove but were displaced once again when the dam was created. It is a fascinating  history that our son may be interested in someday, although he is not currently, which is just fine. The tunnel was a quarter of a mile long and filled with graffiti. We used our flash lights on our phones to try to avoid all of the horse poop. It was a nice hike. 

Tweaks ~ Dean hated the United States Geography book I got him. He felt it was tedious and "lacking in education". We decided that he would finish all the chapters on New England and then move on to one of the other geography programs I have in the house. We also are going to have to do better about family time at night. The need for routine is strong in our family. I was seeing sibling issues by mid-week with the lack of nightly family time. Anne's schedule is very tight this year, so they are doing separate school most of the day. Consequently, they are not having as much together time as they are used to having, and Dean is more isolated than he should be because he doesn't like to take many classes or leave the house much. I will be compiling a list of fun, short activities. We played a new game called Shut the Box. It was fun and quick. We are planning a pub game night with friends soon, since we now have four pub games. 

Blessings, Dawn

Week 3 ~ Year 20 Seven Tenets of Our Homeschool

Over the last 20 years many things have changed. Curricula have come and gone; some goals and dreams for my children have shifted; and the focus of our days has sometimes been taken over by life, forcing us to set books aside for more pressing life lessons. However, there are certain tenets that have always remained. I have never truly experienced burnout in our homeschooling journey. I attribute that to a true love of teaching and the discovery of a Charlotte Mason Education in the earliest months of our homeschool journey. A Charlotte Mason education is so rich. It fills our senses with wonder and leaves our lives full. These seven features of our homeschool have never wavered throughout all these years. They have been with us daily, weekly -- or in the case of poetry teas --monthly, since the beginning of our journey.

Character Training ~ Character training is truly an element that is taught day in and day out in our home through conversations, great literature, curriculum, Bible study and example. This week we focused on the book, Character Is Destiny: Inspiring Stories Every Young Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember, by John McCain. This was our small tribute to Senator McCain as we send up prayers that our country will heed his words and come back together to help all Americans live better, more peaceful lives.

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." ~ Mother Teresa

Nature Study ~ We have done formal and informal nature studies through the years. Some years I have meticulously picked nature topics and we have studied them. That is not the way we are currently doing nature study. We currently have a much more natural flow to our study. For instance, this week we went to say our final farewell to the Chihuly exhibit at the Biltmore and were stunned by the lily pads and other pond plants. Before long, I realized that we (the kids and I) were taking more pictures of the pond life than of the Chihuly glass. So we enjoyed the beautiful plantings and identified later in the week what we had seen. One book that has really stood the test of time in our homeschool is Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock. This book has been a staple in our home since the very first month of our homeschool journey.

Victoria Water Lily Pad

Water Lily

Egyptian Lotus Flower

A Rich Art Program ~ Art has always been a vital and intricate part of our homeschool. We have used picture studies since the kids were old enough to sit and look at books. I love this book I just found, How to Talk to Children About Art, by Francois Barbe-Gall. I am sure it will benefit children who cross my life in the future. Besides visiting Chihuly again this week, we also had our monthly art class with Grandma. Dean also went to his weekly art class. 

The children learned the seven principles of art for visual arts and photography with Grandma. Then they went outside to take photos to portray the seven principles. These are a few of Anne's shots. After, they critiqued their photos using, the Rule of Thirds Grid to determine the photos with the best compositional layout.

Charity Work ~ It is vital to me that my children have charitable hearts and are able to put others before themselves. I believe we have achieved that goal for three out of the four (and our fourth does care, at least as far as her mental health will allow). This month we found ourselves out of homeless kits, so we made 15 more with the focus on hygiene. Usually, we are concerned with the weather, which dictates our homeless kits -- water and sunscreen in the summer, energy bars and warm socks/hats in the winter -- but our fall bags could take on a different focus since fall is one of the easier seasons to live outdoors if one must do so. Our bags are filled with soap, tooth paste and tooth brushes, combs, socks, shampoo and lotion. We will pass them out over the coming weeks as we see people in need along our city streets.

Poetry Tea ~ What isn't to love about a poetry tea? You get to eat treats, drink tea, use crystal and listen to great poetry. We studied four poems by Emily Dickinson this month. We had an animated conversation about her poem, Because I Could Not Stop for Death. 

Field Trips ~ There is no better way to experience the world than going out into the world. We love field trips and I am always on the hunt for fun and educational experiences. This week's field trips were to the Biltmore Estate and to play miniature golf with the visiting grandparents at a new course in town. 

Family Read Aloud Time ~ There is such value in sharing great literature with your children. It affects so many aspects of their lives from writing skills to an understanding of the world around them ... and so much more. As I mentioned before, we have been reading Character Is Destiny this week. We plan to start Christy by Catherine Marshal next week. This book is one of my all time favorite books and is set in the mountain hollers not far from our mountain city. I think it is timely, since we hope to visit Cades Cove this fall, which is where our adopted children's lineage stems from. 

Thanks for hanging in there for this rather long post!

Blessings, Dawn

Week 2 ~ Learning with the Who Was Series...

We had a great second week of school. We managed a full schedule of at-home classes and added two out of the home classes. The kids are taking classes at a local church that offers "homeschool tutorial" classes. We haven't taken classes with them in a few years and the program has grown a great deal. This year Anne is taking Sign Language II and Dean is taking Creative Art and Photography (the photography class doesn't start until September). They both loved their first class and liked being with so many homeschoolers in one place. There were lots of homeschooling teens which is sometimes hard to find in our area. This year alone, four of their homeschooling friends started public school for high school. I hope this will open up doors for a few new friendships.

This week we took several of Anne's dance friends back-to-school thrift store shopping. It was a lovely day and we all had so much fun. We will have to make this a seasonal event.

The 36 Challenge ~ One of the kids' goals this year is to write 36 papers using writing prompts. This does not include science, history or quarterly research papers. This goal is just strictly creative writing and expressing themselves. They will write a draft and a final each week. This week's writing prompt was If you could suddenly go on a road trip, where would you go? Include details and plans.  Both kids were enthusiastic about the prompt and wrote fun papers. Dean selected the beach and Anne planned a trip to Salem, Massachusetts that sounds like lots of spooky fun.

The second 36 Challenge is for Dean alone. I have challenged him to read a book from the Who Was Series and answer questions about each book each week. This means I am reading 36 books from the series, too. The series also includes books about Where Is? and What Is? I realize that these books are below high school reading level, but they are rich with information, and he can easily focus on them and gain lots of knowledge. He enjoys the books and talks about them afterward. I have even seen him delve deeper into the subject and do a bit of research on his own. I strongly feel that meeting each child where they are and helping them to learn on the platform that serves them best is one of the great blessings of homeschooling. This week he read Who Was Jacques Cousteau? I have been scouring our local used bookstores and have come up with a pretty good stack so far. 

In a matter of hours we will have grandparents arriving so I am off to try to cram in a day of schooling before they get here. Have a blessed weekend!

Blessings, Dawn

Week 1 ~ Year 20 -- A Gentle Start

Yes, this is our 20th year of homeschooling. I am totally blown away that this is year 20 of our wonderful, amazing, blessed homeschool journey! I am so very thankful for this way of life. I am grateful that I have been able to stay home and shape my children for the last 20 years. What an incredible blessing it has been to all of us. As I watch my friends send their children back to school and start to hear the horror stories (especially from parents of special needs kids) pouring in and the hopelessness my friends feel to improve their children's situations, I am reminded of the awesome power my husband and I have as homeschooling parents. We are not trapped in a broken system and forced to bow to the will of others who often do not have our children's best interest at heart. We do not have to force our children to conform to something they are not or to ascertain facts in a way they do not learn. We can and do make all of the decisions for our children's well being and education. At the end of this journey, if there are failings and missed opportunities, we will have no one to blame but ourselves -- AND I am okay with that. I am content with the fact that I am doing my best every day and that my best is more than good enough. I love my children and am completely invested in their success, and I have the freedom and power to make alterations in their education to boost their chance for success. No public school can ever say that. There will always be missed opportunities and missteps in life. Picking yourself up and moving on is all part of learning and growing. Homeschooling doesn't have to be perfect every day or even every year. There is great learning in the imperfect. So we go on to learn and grow and I feel so blessed.

You would think after 20 years there wouldn't be much new to try, but there are always new opportunities. This year we tried something that many homeschoolers do every year -- a gentle start. We only added in a few subjects this week. I decided that since the kids are in high school now, we are counting hours (per subject), not weeks or days.  Thus, getting everything going at once did not matter in the least. So we started math, their daily grammar worksheet, group time (world history, health, biology/physics, depending on the day), and independent reading this week. That is it. I must admit one of the days felt overwhelmingly full, which was a bit scary considering that we haven't started yet the 16 hours a week of out of the home dance classes plus three other out of the home classes for art and sign language. We also still plan to add in a weekly English paper each week, plus literature and industrial arts for Dean. We will see if it can all be managed, and if it can't we will adjust.

Highlights from week one ~ 

Use It! Don't Lose It! is the perfect review of grammar. It is only taking the kids about 5 to 10 minutes a day do the assignment. Money Matters for Teens Workbook is also a great fit for Dean. He is doing consumer math this year.

Anne dived off the diving board for the first time.

We watched the 1954 version of 20 Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. Dean read Who Is Jules Verne? and gave us a review of the book before we watched the movie. We also found a chair for $40 at the thrift shop and it is in great shape (which Dean is sitting in). Now everyone has a seat in the living room during movie time.

We did several science experiments with solar print paper and popcorn on our quest to understand radiation uses and x-rays better.

We also managed to do every lesson we set out to do and a few extra. Everything is going well, even Algebra. Anne likes Teaching Textbooks but did struggle at the beginning of the week to remember how to do a few things. Maybe we shouldn't have put math away for the entire summer. By the end of the week she was getting back in the hang of it.

Blessings, Dawn