As the students of Burlington, VT walked around in their
graduation caps and gowns, our two quietly progressed to 1st and 2nd
grade. We wrapped up the year with a week of focus on their own favorite books,
How To Train Your Dragon for Austin and a Magic Tree House for Oliver. They
took some placement tests, did a recap on the geography they learned, and drew
their final self-portraits. We rode bikes to meet Chris for ice cream and we
declared the school year “over.” Only to purchase their summer work books,
start reading from their math curriculum, science chapter books and pick out
some easy readers from Barnes and Noble. Like most of our friends, our kids
will continue to learn throughout the summer, but the routine will be slightly
different and I wanted to provide a sense of completing one year to be able to
welcome the next come September.
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| Last day |
It is hard to wrap up our year of homeschooling in a blog
post, as it doesn’t really feel like anything has ended. Our homeschool is life
school, or life is homeschool. We read books, we write things down. We study
things we didn’t know before and we add. There is no real agenda besides to
explore things that interest us and for me, to push the kiddos to expand on the
basics such as reading and comprehension as we learn throughout the day. We did
use some purchased curriculum to help start us off and we still turn to those
on days that we find ourselves hanging around the camper, but so often there
has been subtractions of those and additions of reading materials related to
what state park we are in, the map in front of us, or magazines along the way.
We play cards for a lot of our math and a deck now accompanies us in my purse
for when we find ourselves at a coffee shop or out to dinner. In an effort to
capture the year, I’m going to break it down in categories that are mostly
asked about…What curriculum do you use? How do you feel about socialization? Do
you want to kill each other at the end of the day (or as I view it, How do you
teach when your kid has had enough?) and What will you do when you get home?
Side note, these past two paragraphs have taken forever to
write as both of the kiddos are curled up with books and I constantly get
questions and comments such as “What does a-n-o-t-h-e-r spell?” “Did you know
that the anaconda does not lay eggs?” So summer school is in session!
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| Oliver Beginning of the year portrait reads: "I like having my own school bag and my crayons and horse camp and looking at phones. I like doing science experiments and playing at birthday parties and turning lights off and on and sleeping and having brownies. And chocolate chip cookies and lemon bread and frappacinnos without coffee and throwing pencils. I like watching television and playing video games and riding skateboards, bikes, scooters, plasma cars, crazy cars and the tractor. I like playing with my brother and playing inside and snuggling with you (mama) and fighting with my brother. I like doing home school and I'm lucky to go on a year long road trip. And lighting candles and going in campers and tents." End of year portrait reads: "I like bike riding, swimming, playing in waves, money my family, and me." |
Academics
As I’ve written before we purchased a couple of curriculum
packages. Oak Meadow, Life of Fred, and Explode the Code. Later I went to
Barnes and Noble and purchased a math work book for each as well. These we used somewhat consistently throughout the school
year. We definitely did through CA and the beginning half of the year as we
were staying in places longer so we could still get out and explore as well as
sit and do school in the mornings. As we started staying in places for shorter
amounts of time, those plans stayed on the sidelines and we would use them once
or twice a week and be out and about the rest of the time. Life of Fred is a
story based math program and you are supposed to read the first three books
while doing the activities and then re-read them as a story before going on to
the next three books. We were able to go through the first three books twice
and are in the middle of the fourth. I had purchased this curriculum thinking I’d
read it during the car rides, but that hasn’t happened. We sort of stopped
reading it as our days became less structured as it’s really a story that is
meant to be read consistently to get the most out of it and we will do the next
three as stories through the summer as it is pretty fun to read!
To track the kiddos progress I used an online assessment
test. I don’t put a ton of stock in these online tests, but I wanted something
to measure progress that wasn’t just my observations as this was our first year
and I had not quite learned how to trust the process. For what it’s worth,
Austin’s (just finished 1st grade) reading skills were at a 1st
grade level the beginning and middle of the year and 2nd grade level
last week and his math was 2nd grade level the beginning and middle
and is now at a 3rd grade level. Oliver (just finished K) started
reading at a 1st grade level and is now at 2nd grade
level and his math progressed from K to 2nd grade. I think I like to
see the progression, but if I hadn’t seen it I’m not sure I would be concerned
as it is clearly evident throughout the days that they have progressed and I
completely trust the process of homeschooling by now.
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| Austin Beginning of year portrait reads: "I really like to long board. I also like science and army. I like to play hide and go seek and I also like reading." End of year portrait reads: "I like bike riding, swimming, snorkeling, playing in waves, turning 8, and nature." |
Socialization
To me, this is pretty much a non issue. I am not sure if any
child of mine would not be exposed to socializing and sometimes too much! We
constantly meet new families while out and about. We have dinners, take walks,
go for bike rides, play in parks and have even visited their homes for a
weekend. We meet up with all of our friends and family around the US and have
been lucky enough to have some visits from our loved ones back home who are
able to meet us places.
Beyond friendship though, I think of socialization as the ability
to communicate with people outside of the family. This was something I was
concerned about as they do not have a teacher to be asking questions from,
taking directions from and negotiating a day with. We have searched these types
of interactions out in our visits to museums, restaurants and our state and
national parks. I have strongly encouraged the boys to start asking questions
wherever we are and they are also expected to order for themselves when we go
out to restaurants. This clearly comes easier to Oliver, but Austin perks up in
strange places with his confidence to use a strong voice and I found him
chatting to the lady in our grocery line today about our trip and how they
home school.
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| Graduation |
Constantly Together
This part of homeschooling has completely captured my heart
and has blown me away. This is the reason I glow with the knowledge that next
year we will be homeschooling and when I think about this trip ending I know it
will be fine because we will still be able to continue with our time together.
Our adventures won’t end and we will find new ways to learn and explore with
one another.
I know too many great teachers and our kids live (at home)
in too good of a school district for me to ever think that they would not be
getting a great education in our schools. We are fortunately surrounded by
wonderful kids who are breaking records when it comes to academics in our
public school system and I routinely see friend’s children plowing through
chapter books that they cannot get their hands on fast enough. Our schools
provide gardens for each classroom, or special summer programs, travel programs
and have great parents with incredible degrees all right there backing up our
little future graduates as they encourage their little ones to have a love of
learning. I know that this is my safety net if we find ourselves in over our
head, and I love having that there. But it’s not the same, for me, as living
and learning beside the kiddos.
By working together every day all day I have been there to
see the struggles and accomplishments and that is something I'm not sure if I'm ready to give up. As the boys have learned to read we sit
together and I have learned what silences mean they are working things out in
their heads and feel the silences that mean we have reached the end of our
lesson. I see the stooped shoulders as a new concept is introduced and have
seen the slow rise in their posture as they grasp it and am at the receiving
end of their smiles as it all clicks into place. I love our read-aloud times
and the question for “just one more chapter.” I love learning what interests
the boys and seeing how the same topic can branch off into different areas for
each boy. I love Oliver’s constant questions on how all of our lessons relate
to people and Austin’s in how they relate to scientific facts. I love seeing them work hand in hand, pouring
over new books or figuring out how an art project should develop. They are the
first to say “good job” to one another or to call me over to see what the other
has created. We have not really had any conflicts when it comes to learning as
when something isn’t working (such as spelling words) we talk about a different
approach that would work and still accomplish the goal of learning to spell
(writing sentences in a first/second draft approach) or with Oliver who hates
when I read a word for him, I am able to sit quietly until he asks me for help.
Our school system has been a little of an experiment for our family. I entered
into the year having a good idea of what I thought would work, but with a
flexible attitude knowing that when you only have two students, lessons are
pretty easily adjusted to fit the needs of everybody at the table.
When people ask if we are ready to run away from one
another, the answer is just simply, No. I want to soak this year up and experience
it again and again and when it hits me that we might be able to continue on
living like this when we are back home, the stress of only having one year
fades away. I can only dream that the closeness that these two have found
during this time of living and learning with one another will continue on if we
move away from this life in a bubble. This all brings me to…
The Future
We know that next year, for Austin’s 2nd grade
and Oliver’s 1st, the kids will still be home with me. We will be
moving back to CO in November and then renting a home that is outside of our
school district. If we do actually find a farm house in Erie, there are three
different public schools they could end up in and we haven’t discounted the
public Montessori charter school or the schools in the neighborhood over from
us. Because there are so many options, and our living situation will not be
determined until the following school year, it makes no sense to start at a school
mid-year. By summer, I hope we know more of what our area has to offer. I know
we will stick with Oak Meadow and Life of Fred. I also think we will become involved
with our public school’s one-day-a-week school for homeschool kids. We will
take advantage of the CU science classes that are offered to homeschool kids
and hopefully take a course at the Laughing Coyote Project or Shining Mountain
Waldorf school that both offer homeschool classes. Each boy will choose an instrument
and a sport and those will be added to our weekly schedules. I’m hoping that by
having 6 months of homeschooling in CO we will feel confident in moving forward
with a decision.
Austin says right now that he wants to homeschool next
year and go to school the next year. Buuuut maybe homeschool. But maybe go to school if his class gets a garden. But maybe homeschool if we live on a farm... Oliver, who would follow Austin to the moon,
says he wants to go wherever Austin will be. I love the creative mixes of traditional school and homeschool scenarios they come up with as they try to navigate the best of both worlds.
And that’s where we are. When we started this year I had
questions if we were doing the right thing educationally. We’ve moved on from
there and now I think that I might just have something unique to offer my two
little munchkins, and that’s a pretty good place to be.
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