in pursuit of wild things

Currently my chest has that awful tight congested feeling. My ears feel stuffed with warm cotton. The back of my throat burns. Tomorrow the coughing will start. Most likely this week’s schooling will only be bare bones but maybe with several cups of hot soothing tea and honey I’ll be able to get through the read-alouds…or not. I supposed I could declare us “unschoolers” for the week, see what happens.

Actually, we could never be unschoolers…not purely anyway. I’ve tried following classical and Charlotte Mason methods over the past few years. I’ve found that anytime I try to enforce the rules of some method or philosophy over another we are all miserable. I have this vision in my heart of how home education should look and feel. But I lost the confidence to implement it as I read books by “experts”. I’m glad that I read those books, knowledge is good.

But I should not have accepted them as gospel. I intend to clarify and return our school to my original vision. For us this return will bring more hands-on and group projects, less workbooks and text books. More mess, more freedom, and more work.

I’m hoping to have a game-plan in place after Christmas break.

School was a little different this week since we started working on a little unit study on the Appalachian Trail. We picked out several books from the library and then everyone chose a project. We’ve read some wonderful books and learned about the book women of Appalachia. So far our favorite books have been from Jesse Stuart. I’ll have a separate post about it later this week and share all of our book titles and projects.

Math and Latin were our tricky subjects this week. Middle Boy hates his math because it is so boring. He generally likes math and rarely makes mistakes but is bored to tears-quite literally! I took his math workbook from him on Friday and gave him the placement test for Beast Academy. The exam was tough and even I had to think through a few of the questions! This math will be a good fit for him and I bet the rest of the crew will be curious enough to read the text and try their hand at some of the problems.

Latin has become grammar intensive! I’m not sure we even need our grammar workbooks anymore. The Latin course does a much better job of teaching language arts anyway. This is definitely the last year we will use grammar workbooks.

We will also finish our science course this week. We’re gonna take a break from science until our restart after the holiday break. We were all really disappointed in the Sonlight science course. After quite a bit of research we are going to use Dr. J Wile’s elementary science series. Middle Boy looked over several science programs with me and helped with all the research (hopefully he appreciates all the work I put into researching their education!!). He is super excited about all of the experiments involved with the course and he loved-loved-loved!!! reading the sample chapters available. Oldest decided to

put off middle school science for a few months because he wants to be in the same science program with Littlest for a while. After Christmas break Littlest will join us in the school room full-time and Oldest wants to be his “helper”.

Yep, I’ll be rocking Kindergarten through middle school in January!!!

On Friday night Sparkles and I went shopping. She had no winter clothing in her closet. After my husband got home from work we abandoned him with the boys and enjoyed a nice girl’s night out. I

really should do that more often with her. We had so much fun! Her clothing choices made me a little sad…no bows or princesses. My baby girl is growing up!!! We found some jeans and a few plain tops. She even picked out a hoodie because The Doctor (Who) wears hoodies these days. She cracked me up at Cracker Barrel because she couldn’t figure out how to get past “just plain dumb” on the table game. I told her she could order anything she wanted for dinner so she chose the Coca-Cola cake! I thought that was great! Our waiter thought she was adorable and decided to adopt me as his mom. I’m pretty sure it was because I let her have chocolate cake for dinner.

We arrived home to a neighborhood with no power. While we were out a meth-lab was busted and one of the “chemists” escaped arrest, crashed into an electric pole, and fled into a nearby field. Helicopters searched the skies and police officers searched through our neighborhood! I don’t know, but maybe we picked the wrong neighborhood?!?! Anyway, once the power returned later in the evening we learned more about tragedy. Paris reminded me deeply of 911. I was horrified but not surprised. I was saddened to learn that many churches remained closed for worship on Sunday morning. When our pastor announced this I couldn’t help but feel that Apocalyptic Islam had won. I do not know where this world of ours is going. I am frightened for my children and for yours. Despite my own fears I trust my Savior.

In the pictures below you will find links to the Brave Writer Periscope group on Facebook for the Holiday Season. A support group for those who follow Julie Bogart on Periscope. The second picture is to the free gift for a gratitude journal she made. The last pictures in the gallery are from our church’s display of 225 years of history in the Frankfort area. The display will be taken down this week so my husband and I skipped Sunday School (again!!) to look over the history. Sadly, the lovely couch will be moved from the foyer area and returned to one of the building on sire. Oldest loves the couch and it has served as our designated meeting spot the past few weeks.

Linking up with: Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Parent Teacher Meet-up

Sparkles and friend

making tea

Littlest enjoying his tea

tea party