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.

2023

Note: I wrote this on New Year's Eve morning, and that is when I am scheduling this to appear as posted, however several days have passed, and, in actuality, it is January 7 today. Since writing this, our area/state has been hit with a series of serious storms, causing significant damage and some loss of life. I don't want to be insensitive to that or to growing concerns about additional storms coming, but I am going to let this post as it was when I wrote it.

 

I am in our dim, early morning kitchen, with a soft, faux lantern on, sitting next to the window in a chair covered with a soft sheepskin (bought for me when I was about 12), listening to the sound of the rain. It is incredibly soothing. Deep in drought, it's filling my soul just a little bit, to hear the rain splatter, although we are anticipating a storm here in our area. 

We've come upon December 31st in a bit of a blink. Usually, I have been mentally toying around with and considering words for the year ahead for a couple of weeks, but this year, it has just been a couple of days. 

For 2022, my word has been Change, and it has been so appropriate. When Brown Mouse graduated from our homeschool charter, we all moved on from that community. M experienced employment change and rediscovering of self (much to the benefit of his health and our family connection). We are now book-ending high school. We experienced our first year with Biscuit dog. Mountain biking moved from something we enjoyed to a primary focus. Lala Bug said farewell (for now) to her long time dance studio. Lots of change.

For 2023, I find I can't limit myself to one word and I am having trouble choosing. Part of me wants to simply say my word for the year is Me. While I know I need to give more attention to myself in a number of ways, the word doesn't feel broad enough to embody how I want to approach the year. To start 2023, I have chosen Strengthen as my primary word. I want to strengthen my self-care, my boundaries, our rhythms, our long-term goals, my connections, etc. I know more Change is coming, though, and with the desire to Strengthen comes a need for an openness to Possibilities and I have a growing desire for Purpose. (Purpose was the first word that came to me, of these three, and I find I am resisting it, which tells me that is all the more reason to explore that a little more.) 

Choosing a word has worked for me for years now (since 2010), instead of setting resolutions. A word is a mental anchor for me. It feels simple and broad enough for those times my mind is getting away from me. I am a deep thinker and feeler, so a word (or, in this case, three words) to meditate on can help me to keep moving forward.

Wishing you all the best in 2023.

homeschool 2022-2023

 

2022 has been such a year of change (my word for the year)! This year, our family outgrew our beloved K-8 charter school. (And our teacher retired...We always told her she could not retire until Brown Mouse graduated! 😘) We went through the process of applying to, visiting, and considering in-person high schools for Brown Mouse. Just as happened with Lala Bug as she moved into 9th grade, it was I who wanted to pursue exploring school and the kids who wanted to continue homeschooling. So...we are still homeschooling and still with a homeschool-supporting charter school, although this charter has a whole different vibe and is not the center of our community. 

This year we have a kiddo in 12th grade (part 1) and one in 9th grade. Two high schoolers! (And a tag-along doggo, who makes the hard stuff more bearable.) Both kids have neuro-differences, but completely different ones! They keep us fresh and creative with how we approach things and it leads to many conversations and lifestyle pivots as we try to address, support, encourage, and grow as individuals and as a family.

Our 12th grader is working through "course work" for Life Skills, language/culture, World Geography, English, Art, and a community college course that covers history and fashion. She will be doing Health and perhaps another community college class during winter/spring. Her neuro-differences means that we work with her to keep the demands and expectations light and in balance with physical activity and her need to counter sensory overwhelm.

Our 9th grader is working through "course work" for Life Skills, World Geography, Biology, Algebra 1, English, and Art. He will be doing Health during winter/spring. He does a lot of tinkering on bikes and remote control cars and we were hoping for a bike mechanics internship, but he is on the very young age for the program, so it might not work out (yet). His learning differences have him working with a specialist weekly and may have us returning to occupational therapy (OT). OT might be the most fun therapy option out there for quirky kids, because it tends to be hands-on and physical!

Both kids are mountain biking and Brown Mouse is also playing soccer this fall. Both kids are signed up for 4-H. Brown Mouse is very reluctant. I previously told him he could have the choice this year, but I am now pushing for him to participate, because our club leaders have been working hard to try to provide more to engage the teens. (Our club lost a lot of members during the pandemic and many members are younger). Also, I am leading an outdoor project and it is his sister's final year. I think this year might be our family's last in 4-H.

Resources we are using and already enjoying and/or simply appreciating include: Guest Hollow's World Geography; Blog, She Wrote's Microscopic Marvels; ck12 online flexbooks for Biology; CTCMath; Write Shop; edX (massive online course - MOOC), and various other resources for...everything!

We are off to a good start, for which I am grateful, and hope your year has begun well, too!

change/brave

My posts are getting fewer and further between! (I see that I never posted about our learning year this fall. I might come back and remedy that at some point.) 

 

Every year since 2010, I have chosen a word for the year. Each year, mentally coming back to the word has been a helpful anchor. Except 2021. My word for 2021 was Thrive, but it was a Survive year. It has been a rough year with much growth and yet much to keep us stuck.

As always, a dictionary of words were options for 2022 - there are so many good words in multiple languages - but I think I have to choose the word Change. And this year, in choosing Change, I have to pair it with Brave, because change is really hard for me, hard for others in my family, but I feel deeply that we need to embrace it, currently, and that takes bravery.

What words, thoughts, goals, etc. are you striving for in 2022?

the lake 2021

It has been awhile, hasn't it? 2021 has been...hard. For that reason (and maybe because of growing, changing kids and circumstances), I have gone blog quiet.

A couple weeks ago, we got to return to "our" special lakeside retreat for the first time since before the pandemic. Here is my post from last year. (It links to the several years' posts before.) The text below is what I shared on my personal social media page from our time up there this summer. Before you scroll on, let me share that "our" side of the lake and a vast portion of the surrounding area has now been burned or is now surrounded by the Caldor fire. The fire continues to burn, descending on South Lake Tahoe. We know exhausted firefighters are doing all they can to stop the spread and protect what they can. 

This place always brings up so much emotion for me, but with wildfire added to the layers, my emotions have been difficult to process and articulate.

Please keep our forests, firefighters, and residents in your thoughts.

 

Little cabin, 2018

From social media, 8/19/21: I haven’t been in this space in awhile. Life has been needing me full on. I hesitated sharing these photos. I have very few this year from our special place. We hadn’t been in two years (last summer being the first of my life not to go), and while normally it is the respite we all crave, this year’s trip was fraught with the deep anxiety, stress, and mental health woes that have continued to challenge us. We were able to get to this special spot for a few days with my parents, brother, and his girlfriend, but, to be real, it wasn’t the restorative nature balm I/we needed. It was familiar but different. It’s beauty was muted by hazy smoke. There were “roses” and special moments, I am glad we went, but in the end, mental health needs brought us all home early, and as hard as it was to make that call, it meant that we were ready to leave when the haze (present the entire time) shifted to heavy smoke and poor air quality. Once home, a small wildfire has grown, evacuating much of the area. So many emotions this year. 2021 is teaching us gratitude and grit.

 

 

2021-2022 home learning

I kept thinking I would come and post about our school year at some point after posting about the Caldor fire in the mountains, but I never did. The clock kept ticking, tomorrows kept coming and going and here we are. I am writing this a chunk of the way into the 2021-2022 school year (winter break!), but I might post it to the appropriate time period (Aug/Sept 2021), just for my own chronological documentation! I am pretty sure no one reads this blog anymore. (Who even blogs anymore?!) 

(Additional update, summer 2022, school year complete; I never did post this during winter break with a current or August publish date, so I am doing so now, with no edits to what I wrote in December/January. Just the way the school year rolled!)

Before writing this, I went back and read last year's start-of-year post. 2021 proved to be much harder than 2020 for us. It could be the length of the pandemic by this point, growing changing teens in isolation, the strain of tensions and strife in our country, all of the above, and more. But we took a full-on, desperate break from schooling over the summer. We crawled to the finish line of the 2020-2021 school year and I didn't even manage to celebrate the start of summer for or with the kids. 

There was quite a bit of reluctance to begin this 2021-2022 school year. Anxiety and stress were very high, showing up to things was difficult, but there were activities to show up to for the first time in months (over a year!). Also significant for us is that this is Brown Mouse's (and therefore our family's) last year with our beloved homeschool charter. For these and other reasons, we did a slow entry into the school year, and looking back, I refer to the first few months as "fun fall." Basically, we had been socially isolated so long, that if an activity was happening that a kiddo wanted to do, we tried to say yes. We put the priority on social and mental health and growth. It was slow going for Brown Mouse, not the kiddo we had expected to have a difficult time, but by mid-October, he was in a better place and a healthier groove, and I would say that both kids are thriving more now.

This year we have an 8th grader and 11th grader! Both my kiddos have learning differences, both have anxiety, and one was finally confirmed as Autistic (with PDA) this year. These differences deeply affect and shape their educations, our family, and their days.

I have been trying to hang onto Together Time, but it is hit or miss. This is the only piece of our intentional homeschooling that we still do all together and I try and bring content, conversation, books, and games that fill gaps and are short and sweet. One kiddo has really been struggling with auditory overwhelm, which is the primary reason it is hit or miss.

This autumn, our 8th grader got to take an ecosystems science class (in person, outside) with his charter, followed by an incredible series of field trips that included Lala Bug and me. The staff quickly noted how much the (small group of) middle schoolers were struggling post/mid pandemic, and have since also instituted a weekly middle schooler game time. At home, we have been working together through math and writing/language arts most especially. Science and history are easier to touch on naturally in our homeschool. Moving into winter/spring, he has again (4th year for him) joined the Shakespeare class. The students will be performing A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Club soccer resumed this fall and Brown Mouse was thrilled to participate. What we didn't anticipate, however, was how much pain he would experience running the full sized fields after such an epic growth spurt (8+ inches), so we paired soccer with physical therapy. Shortly after soccer season wrapped up, he very happily began mountain biking club, which will roll for the next 5+ months. (Both kids have been mountain bikers for a few years, really ramping it up during the pandemic.) Biking and bike mechanics are his primary passions, so he's a happy kid.

(Resources for him include; ALEKS, All About Spelling, Brave Writer, Write Shop, and others.)

Lala Bug didn't return to club soccer, but she did return to ballet since it resumed in-person. She danced all fall and is continuing to do so, adding club mountain biking for winter/spring. (Unfortunately for me and scheduling, the kids are in different biking clubs.)

For 11th grade, Lala Bug is tackling Algebra II, World History, English, and Italian. In the fall, she also had Psychology on her learning plans and for winter/spring, she's studying Astronomy/Rocket Science. And always, she gets credit for art, which, for her, is sewing, knitting, fashion design, pattern writing, pattern drafting, and more. She is getting more and more skilled and it likely to pursue these passions beyond high school. 

(Resources for her include: Khan Academy, Write Shop, edX MOOC, Mr. D Math, Crash Course, and more.) 

Both kids are also participating in a couple projects in 4-H; hiking and an environmental stewardship project.

I am trying to stay on top of providing resources, encouragement, teaching life skills, supporting mental health, and all the things, but I am also gently beginning to consider what I want to be when I grow up and retire from home educating these kiddos.

 

hope and thrive

 

 

This past week has been emotional for my family, comprised of seemingly small things, which, following the past 14 months of pandemic life, have felt significant, when all rolled into one typical little week. The makings of the week may have no interest to anyone else, but I know if I share them here, one day I will read this post and be touched by it.

In the past 7 days, the following has happened;

I went to the library for our weekly curbside pick-up and found that the library was open and I was welcomed in. I am fairly sure my reaction gave the staff a little bit of joy, because I had all the awe, wonder, and excitement of a 5 year old in a candy store. Yes, I had to hand sanitize, mask up, have my temperature taken, and more, but I got to browse books, touch books, and come home with books that I selected just because I liked the cover. 

Mike and I both got our first COVID vaccine shot. I have no desire to have any sort of debate here on my blog about vaccinations. My background is science and yet I did not enter the clinic lightly and it was a surreal experience. (We had minimal reactions to the first shot. I am aware through various sources of information that we are likely to react to the second shot.) 

We learned that we will be able to go to the lakeside cabin this summer. Last summer was the first year in my life that we were not able to go, it was a deep loss, and I thought (given the growth of the family that owns it) that 2019 might have been our final summer. I will cherish our days there.

We met with a neuropsychologist and left the meeting feeling validated and positive. In our many attempts to support our differently wired kiddo, this is one of few experiences to which I can put those words. 

It rained. We live in drought-stricken California, so this gift from the skies was appreciated and celebrated. In fact, we headed to our favorite 'pond' for a rain walk and exploration, during which the kids were delighted by a single little duckling that raced about in the water, as if it had finally be let out to play, and curious little salamander.

This week has felt like an out-breath after holding my breath for far too long. It felt like steps toward thriving (my word for 2021).