May 2019

May brings sun and sandy beach swims,

Before the summer fog rolls in. 

~Nicola

Dates of Interest:

May 1: May Day. We make and deliver anonymous May Day bouquets. (Above photo.)

May 12: Mother's Day

May 27: Memorial Day

May 30: Last day of school (for our charter and I think us, too, this year. Lala Bug graduates our charter this year. Lots of feelings!)


Homeschooling:

April was very off-kilter with, and following, testing. Our one consistent piece through the month was an Outschool math class both kids did and enjoyed. At the end of the month and heading into the beginning of May, our literature choice is Esperanza Rising, which fits in beautifully with our other studies of the Depression (and recovery, and World War II) time period and is poignant for us as Californians. It is a wonderful book!

Fifth Grader: We are continuing with our language arts (Brave Writer and REWARDS) and math (Teaching Textbooks and Key To series), but this month I want to be heavy on nature/botany for Brown Mouse.

Eight Grader: We are continuing with language arts (Brave Writer and one-on-one support from our charter) and math (Khan Academy and Key To series). This month I want to end with a focus on business and entrepreneurship with Lala Bug.

High school...we have a general plan in place now (link to post). Now, Lala Bug and I will begin to shape what her homeschool courses will be and I will dive a little deeper into making sure we are covering what we need to for all of high school, from the very beginning.

Self-care:

If nothing else this month, I am feeling a deep need for some alone time. The list of things I really want to do that would help fuel me seems rather simple; keep increasing my morning journal and exercise time back to what it was, drink more water, finish a couple books I am dragging through, and resume meditating and the anti-inflammatory diet. Ha! That is quite a lot, really.

Parenting:

M and I have gotten a little more time to focus on us, which is good. We can feel and see the growth, positive and challenging, in both our kids, and we are having to discuss and coordinate new limits within our parenting. I am working on not feeling guilty when setting a limit or frazzled when there is push-back to the limit. This is all normal and good.

Home life:

Usually, I am an autumn-cleaning rather than a spring-cleaning type of person, but I can feel my highly sensitive self is deeply needing to clear and clean. I know this won't likely be my focus until school and soccer season are done, but a little here and a little there helps!

Crafting:
Endless projects here...new baby and end of school year gifts being made, house and yard projects being worked, science crafts being done, and long abandoned projects being picked up and finished!

Have a lovely May!

(This post was inspired by Carrie of The Parenting Passageway.)

the path ahead - high school

More than a year ago, I wrote this post about the path ahead. And at the beginning of this school year, I wrote about how planning for the year felt and looked a little different because weren't sure what school would look like for our family in the 2019-2020 year. Well, it turns out that planning for the year (or ~4 high school years) ahead touched and affected almost every aspect of this current school year and yet we didn't know what we would be doing until this past week or so.

We spent the entire 'first semester' of this school year supporting our 8th grader through a series of evaluations to help us better understand and support her. She's a differently wired kiddo and it felt important to have whatever services she might receive, in place, before transitioning to the next stage of learning. (Even if we were to continue homeschooling, the charter school that provides us with support, structure, and community ends with 8th grade, so transitions are inevitable.) It turns out that we know her strengths and challenges really well (i.e. we didn't learn much new) and her differences don't qualify her for support, so we felt as though we were left stumbling a bit. We don't want to reinvent the wheel, but it has felt exceptionally difficult to find the support for her differences. In addition, at winter break, the kids' occupational therapist, with whom Lala Bug had been working and in relationship with for 3 years, moved. It has been an emotional year and emotions are hard to process.

In the weeks and months after winter break, I attended more homeschool high school workshops and learning opportunities, and we attended a number of high school information sessions. Then application time began, including applications from a reluctant Lala Bug, followed by interviews and shadow days. We explored both paths, homeschooling high school and brick and mortar high school options, wanting to know what our choices are, and trying to respect her consistent and strong desire to homeschool, in balance with my uncertainty about providing all she needs at a high school level, without proper support.

I am condensing a tremendous amount of intensity, emotional fluctuation, anxiety, uncertainty, discussion, and decision making into very few words for the sake of this post, but it has been a very full year of considering what is coming ahead, which feels contradictory, considering my word for the year is Present. I have felt anything but.

At this point, we are still waiting to hear from the homeschool charter schools that serve high schoolers in our area, because they don't accept applications and do lotteries until quite late in the year. I suppose this could change our plans slightly, but given the experiences of friends who have forged ahead of us, we are assuming we won't 'win' a spot.

So...next year, we will be doing a hybrid of homeschooling and school. Lala Bug was accepted to a part time program at a school that supports differently wired kids, so we are hoping she has the best of both...community, support in learning and emotional growth as well as some freedom to really pursue her own passions. She will attend the very small high school for a couple of core classes and we will create the rest of her learning plan together. She is reluctant to change what we are currently doing, but I think we are both excited at the ideas of all the amazing classes that we can create, tailored just for her.

As we were exploring schools for her, we explored schools for Brown Mouse, as well, but he too, will continue homeschooling.

I would love to hear what others are doing for the coming year, high school or not. I will link to this post on Facebook and Instagram, where these posts tend to get comments, so feel free to comment here or there, if you prefer!