2016 Homeschool Resolutions

 

After a fabulous holiday with family, friends, 

parties, wining and dining, 

we'll be starting our school year in a week or two. 

We're in middle school, but not any specific year. 

In a regular school, Lu would probably be placed in the 7th grade. 

He's 13 now and he's a very busy young man. 

He's got goats. 

He's got a girlfriend.

He's got ongoing (non-alcoholic) fermentation projects. 

And he's got occasional catering jobs.

It's going to be tricky fitting in our homeschool schedule with all of this. Goats and fermentation can be called Science Class, but there are still many things I want to cover: reading the classics, developing essay-writing skills, ALGEBRA, world history and Guatemalan history.... And there are things that Lu wants to cover: developing culinary skills (workshops, tutorials, recipe books, experimentation...), guitar, carpentry, photography...

There are only so many hours in the day, so we have a lot of planning and decision-making ahead. We're going to have to give and take, and negotiate, and come up with something that works for us.

 But before I sit down with Lu to do all of this, 

I want to commit to these 2016 Homeschool Resolutions:

I will give priority to Lu's interests.

I will be supportive of projects that Lu decides to undertake.

I will let go of conventional ideas like 

"Math HAS TO BE an every day class." 

I will trust in Lu's desire to learn.

If something isn't working, I won't try to force it.

Our 7-week Break

This is our fifth year homeschooling and we had never taken such a long break as we did this year. The original plan was for a five-week break, but it just felt so good, we stretched it out a bit longer. 

We really needed this.

We didn't go anywhere fancy or even do anything all that exciting.
We just swam a lot, ate a lot, stayed up late a lot, and slept in a lot.

And it was blissful :)

 At the lake:

Even Cha managed a WHOLE week off!

At the pool:

Bonfire in our yard:

 Lu's clubhouse is finally finished!

Making his first pizza:

At the pool again, with friends:

We had a blast!

Tomorrow we're back to business, with lots of cool new projects,

Lu's main project will be researching 

the twenty most influential cities of the world,

and creating a slideshow presentation.

This will be an independent project,

and I'm so excited to see what he does with it :)

Birthday Week 2014

My baby boy turned 12!

 

When we started homeschooling four years ago,

we started a tradition of taking the whole week off

and having as much fun as we possibly can

for our birthdays.

Lu's grown SO much this year.

Here are last year's and this year's

pics of him reading his Bday card.

Here are some moments from our fabulous week:

Picnic at the Lake

With freshly squeezed orange juice by Lu

 Presents!

The Electric Guitar

(that he's been begging for all year and hasn't

stopped playing since he got his hands on it)

 Cake!

A Halloween Party

Sunday at our favorite BBQ & Pool

 

 

And missing are pics of Mega Sushi Feast, 

Ping Pong and Billiards Tournaments,

and Karaoke Birthday Night.

It was a BLAST!

Piercings, Pie, and Epiphanies

We are back from a three-week break

with a new haircut and a second piercing.

Lu's mama thinks he's lookin' pretty cool.

Last Saturday he spent the entire evening baking

for the community market on Sunday.

He made a key-lime pie and a cheesecake,

and took his earrings to sell too.

 Both pies were gone in under half an hour!

He made over $15!!!

And around here, considering he only invested 4-5 hours,

that's almost enough to live on!

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Breaks always bring some sort of epiphany for me with them.

This break really made it clear that:

a) my little boy is almost no longer a little boy

and

b) I want to spend as much fun time with this little boy,

for the little bit of time I have left with him, as I can.

So, I've decided to slow way down on the academics

and give more time to playing games,

swimming, hiking, singing, dancing,

and making things...

like this homemade, natural amplifier that Lu made

with bamboo for his iPad. 

Genius!

There will always be more time to learn history or algebra. 

I'll be 39 tomorrow and I'm still learning :)