A little bit of this, a little bit of that...
Hello readers!
Finding myself a bit brain dead tonight. It's a bit overwhelming to think about where to begin catching up, simply because SO MUCH has happened in the last four months. I was looking back through photos and it's hard to believe that we lived in a completely different state and a completely different house just three short months ago. It feels a bit like three years ago.
So, let's talk a little bit about a few different things.
Many of you may want to know what the girls are up to with homeschooling and activities, etc. Starting up homeschool felt a bit hurried and discombobulated as we were living with my parents at the time. I knew we could probably wait until we were in our new house, since our closing date was September 20, but I was eager to make sure we were checking all the legal boxes for the state of Delaware. It turns out homeschooling is fairly easy here, even more so than in Massachusetts. All I had to do was set up a "nonpublic school" with the department of education on their website, enroll the girls, and that was it! I didn't even have to submit an ed plan (like in MA). So early planning wasn't necessary, but I was eager to have a bit of a routine for the girls and I knew from past experience that waiting too long to start meant having to do school into the summer the following year, and we always enjoyed being done nice and early.
(First day of homeschool tea party with cupcakes!)
The girls and I had a lot of conversations early on about how we wanted to do things. Having just come out of public school, I think we all wanted to do something a little different, and the whole "public school at home" model felt slightly less appealing than leaning more in the "unschool" direction. However, I was also feeling a bit new at the homeschooling high school thing, and wanted to give my older girls a high school transcript that they could be proud of. So, we decided that, in our first year at least, we would follow the courses they would have taken in public high school, had they continued.
{In case you're curious, our math curriculum for J and C is Reveal Math, the same curriculum they were using in their public school in Massachusetts. Because I had purchased IXL for the whole family, and their skill plans have everything mapped to these textbooks, it made things fairly easy for me. I just purchased the textbooks for their grade levels on Amazon, used for like $9-$11 each, and we go over the textbook lessons and then they do the IXL practice. It's not the most interesting or fun, but it gets us through the material. Once we're really settled here I may revisit Math to make it a little less dry, but for now it's working okay.}
So, I feel like I'm handling the high school planning and curriculum okay, but the grading part I am hopelessly behind on. I am not used to having to give grades in homeschool! But... to have a high school transcript, you have to have grades. And also, I do want to give the girls credit for all of the hard work they are doing! I'll probably need to take a day off from school at some point to just catch up on everything. We use Google Classroom so all the material is in there for me to look over... just haven't done it yet. It's about all I can do in a typical week to get the plan laid out and all the assignments posted and give everyone the individual attention they need. We knew it would be a full time job, and it is! But I love it!
As a 9th grader, L is taking high-school level Geometry, Physics, English, World History, Art History, Spanish II, a Personal Finance/Life Skills class that I'm putting together, and viola. Again I'm using a combo of Reveal and IXL for her Geometry, and the other classes are a mixture of Khan Academy, some high school textbooks I purchased used on Amazon, and Mom-led or sometimes L-led material. For her World History class we're teaming up with N and studying wars throughout history, which has been pretty fun. We just finished a Trojan War/Ancient Greece unit that tied in nicely with reading the Iliad for English class, for example. Many of the things we have done have been cross-curricular, which has been my typical MO since we started homeschooling. We can write a paper for English about a historical topic we're studying, for example... it's nice to kill two birds.
As an 11th grader, N is taking Chemistry dual-enrolled at Wilmington University for college credit. Their dual enrollment program for homeschoolers is dirt cheap ($35 a credit!!!!) and I couldn't be more thrilled that a) I don't have to teach her Chemistry and b) she can check off a high school box while simultaneously earning some credits towards a degree. Our courses at home are Pre-Calculus, English, History of Wars, Art History, Spanish IV, Personal Finance/Life Skills, and violin. Luckily there is a great high school Pre-Calculus course on Khan Academy, because I would have really struggled with that one. Everything else I can handle teaching her fairly well, so it has been less intimidating than I thought it might be! Her Chemistry class is taking up the bulk of her study time right now, since it's ALL of high school Chemistry in one semester, so there's a lot of material to cover and the workload is substantial. But that's the beauty of homeschooling; we can take some time off from other subjects and catch up once her course is done. She is already only three weeks from the end of the class, which is amazing to me-- time has flown. N has been so brave this year about so many things. She has always been our guinea pig as the oldest, and she really takes it in stride and is such a trooper. We are lucky parents indeed.
Another thing that the high school girls have been doing is playing with the Delaware Youth Symphony Orchestra. Rehearsal is in Wilmington which is a bit of a hike from our house, but after their rehearsal in the morning they typically volunteer at a rabbit shelter nearby and have really been loving getting some time with some shelter bunnies! L has a dream of running her own rabbit shelter when she gets older, so this has been really great practice.
The pace that we are currently keeping with all of this activity does feel a little frantic, especially since we are in Wilmington all day Saturday and N usually has dance team rehearsals on Sunday, so we don’t really have a weekend. We do typically take Fridays off from school during the week, but N still has a dance rehearsal on Fridays currently, so I often try to get started on a home project on a Friday morning but before I know it, it’s time to drive her to practice and then when we get home it’s already time to get dinner ready. So anyways, I have had some thoughts about slowing our pace, or leaning more towards unschooling and letting them follow their own learning direction instead of forcing a curriculum or schedule on them. For now, we have some planned breaks ahead so I think we can keep up the pace. But you know me, I’m always thinking!!
Well, that was a lot about the girls actually. I think the only other "bit" I'll mention right now is that we have been getting more and more into vegetarian/vegan eating. Anyone who has been around this blog a while knows that we lean that direction in general, but this fall we are also focusing more on eating clean and trying as much as possible to eliminate ultra-processed foods (after watching this video in our homeschool). It's very hard when family life is busy and I tend to be a little burnt out on cooking, but because we're also committed to saving money after eliminating my salary, it's a secondary motivator to do less restaurant eating and overall consuming little to no meat. If you want to hear some of my rationale on why I think vegan diet is the healthiest, go down Dr. Greger's YouTube rabbit hole. You're welcome :)
Anyway, I feel like I'm gaining a lot of new knowledge lately on vegan cooking and finding some recipes that are real winners! Of course I photograph my food a lot so here are a few I have loved:
Vegan crepe stuffed with sauteed mushrooms, spinach, red onion, tofu, and tomato, smothered in vegan hollandaise sauce... enjoyed on the beach during this balmy November we've had
"Fiesta salad" with chickpeas, avocado, and this amazing chipotle tahini dressing
Vegan pad thai from Ellen's e-book!
Vegan pizza with tofu ricotta
Well, that's all the time I have for tonight. Brain dead I was not, I guess! Hope you enjoyed the updates-- see you all next Monday :)
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