homeschool 2023-2024

 

 

We have entered our 12th year of home learning! 

This year, Brown Mouse is in 10th grade and Lala Bug has moved out of high school and declared her major in apparel design and merchandising.

After expressing interest in heading to a brick and mortar school for the rest of high school (a door we left open by homeschooling through a charter school), lots of conversations, visiting schools, narrowing down choices, and sitting in classrooms, Brown Mouse opted to continue homeschooling. He's got a full load with geometry, physics, English, U.S. history, life skills/transition, P.E., and driver's ed. He is biking (mountain and road), always, and is back in soccer after an injury, playing with the team he has been part of since he was 8. And he will be assistant soccer coaching with the skills coach he began playing with at age 6!

Lala Bug began taking college classes in high school and chose to continue, selecting math, pattern draping, and fashion sketching for this year, majoring in apparel design and merchandising. So far, we have been impressed with the program, the staff, and the disabled student services, and feel lucky to have a solid niche program so close to home. She has continued building skills and making beautiful items (knits, fashion, books, and more) and I am working with her on her small business and entrepreneurial goals. She is also mountain and road biking. 

That is our little nutshell as we propel into this learning year!

 

graduation

 

Lala Bug has been learning at home since mid-way through 2nd grade, 8 years old. In our homeschool (and let me emphasize that every homeschool is different for so many reasons, most importantly because every human and family is different), we stuck with 'grade levels,' because, for the most part, we homeschooled with the support of charter schools. (Technically, this means that our kids have been public schooled students of the charter schools, and have always been had assignments, accountability, testing, etc.) This spring, Lala Bug completed 12th grade, high school. 

We have been UsSchoolers (once I settled in and let go) and Lala Bug has been loathe to make any sort of 'deal' out of graduating, but as homeschoolers, her education has been my education and it feels like something I/we need to celebrate. I am sharing here, since this has been my space and my record of quite a long (blink!) journey. I have been blogging for over 15 years, so have captured a lot. She graduated with all the things educators worry about (high GPA, plenty of credits, well rounded), yes, but what has mattered far more to us has been helping our kids find passion, direction, interest in learning, self-advocacy, and more. She has been dual-enrolled in an apparel design and merchandising program and has declared that as her major. She'll continue living at home and receiving support as needed, so...grade 13?

So proud of this human who has (and will always have to) overcome a tremendous number of challenges, will always have to work with her differences in a neurotypical world.