As has been our after-SVI routine for the past few years, Fiona and I are thinking about and planning the upcoming year of homeschooling. While she had some ambivalence about homeschooling during the tail end of winter last year, she’s
When the kids were younger, our natural homeschooling year was kind of upside-down. Winter would see us spending a lot of down-time in front of the fire, energy and creativity at a bit of an ebb. Once the longer days
Though still essentially an out-and-out unschooler, Fiona has been taking Introductory Spanish at the local school this semester. Nominally she’s in Grade 4 and the requirement for second-language learning doesn’t kick in until Grade 5 within the DL program we’re
Our workshops exploring aspects of law and government have continued since last spring and concluded this week with a moot court. We’ve made a special trip to Nelson for each one, and even though we do far too much driving
One of the things I love about homeschooling is the way the boundaries between subjects don’t need to exist at all. I know that many schools pride themselves on making “cross-curricular connections,” but those are more like threads connecting otherwise
Where has October gone? Where has my blogging mojo gone? My additional teaching load, and all the juggling of travel and activities by Noah and Sophie, is taking a toll. Fall was amazing until the rain finally caught up with
Recently Fiona has been fascinated by Vi Hart’s quirky art-in-math videos. She’s made Fibonacci spirals, binary trees, trihexaflexagons and various other doodly-mathy things. Recently she noticed how a particular style of spiral doodle looked a bit like topographic lines on
This spring Fiona and I have been attending a series of workshops led by a lawyer and homeschooling dad focused on exploring the principles of law and government. They’re free. They’re held largely out of doors, but with occasional use
She loves gymnastics, and it loves her back. Today Fiona finished her first term in the recreational program in Nelson. We found a class that fit perfectly into the time of the Corazón rehearsal, but it took us almost 8
We have Erin home for almost four days. She made the trip back from Montreal for her high school graduation weekend. While she’s been living there this year studying violin and playing in an orchestra, she’s officially still been a
One of the main advantages of being part of a Distributed Learning (i.e. homeschool support) program through our local school is being able to ask for specific perks and opportunities and have responsive can-do people on the receiving end who
The Arts & Writers School and Community Coffee House was last night. It’s the culmination of a week of electives and workshops held at the school with a variety of local and guest artists. In the gallery space was the
Just over a month ago Fiona received her favourite Festivus gift. I bought her a set of four TOPS Chemistry units, complete with the equipment and supplies kits that made them completely self-contained and drop-dead simple to implement in the
The math watershed occurs in our family when the kids finish the Singapore Primary Math program. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions of the math watershed occurred around age 10 for my three elder kids respectively. That was too young
Compared to what the kids’ educations looked like several years ago, things are much more varied and piecemeal these days. I used to have four kids hanging out and playing at home and in the community, pursuing learning entirely outside