2013 Homeschooling Goals

At the end of 2012 I spent a day setting a vision for the upcoming year in many categories of my life: personal, homeschooling parent, mothering, wife, and homemaker.  I wrote an overarching vision statement and then created specific goals I wanted to meet this year in order to help create that vision.

Below is my vision for homeschooling.  I keep making small changes to it as I re-read it but this is today’s version.

I want to be an inspiration for my children to learn how to think in an integrated, holistic, creative manner.  I want them to feel confident and excited to tackle anything they set their minds to.   I want them to know how to bring their ideas to fruition.  I want them to have a broad base of knowledge as context into which they can put new ideas and a deep base of knowledge on any subject they desire.  My real wish is for them to be passionate about things.  That takes care of most everything.

Here are the specific goals:

1. I will write 50 blog entries.

How does writing a blog help with educating my children?  Simply, it keeps me accountable to myself.  It requires I spend some time thinking about what we want to do and compare that to how we actually spend our time.  And that is our journey to arête. 

2. I will write two comprehensive assessments (in January and August) about Armand and Elio. 

In Leadership Education lingo, this is called the ‘six month assessment’.  I’ve been doing these for about three years and have found them to very useful and also a wonderful way to document what the children are like at different points in their life. 

3. I will volunteer alongside Armand and Elio for 25 hours at PORCH.

PORCH is a volunteer local food distribution effort.  One Monday a month we take donations from our neighborhood to a local church to combine with donations from other neighborhoods for an average of 1,000 very full paper bags of food.  For the past four months, Armand, Elio and I have been staying to help sort the food and we find it to be a fun, energetic and easy way to give to the community.  If we volunteer 10 times this year, we’ll have contributed 25 hours to helping our local hungry population.

4. I will have 8 classes in each of the following topics before June: soap and lotion making, stained glass making, cooking and baking , and native plant landscaping.

These aren’t official classes but instead reminders for me to introduce topics I have intended to but keep getting put off.  I used to make soap and stained glass projects before the boys were born and I have been craving to do both again.  The cooking and baking class is simply to remind myself to get them into the kitchen more often, especially when we are making things they love to eat.  The native plant class has turned into learning about carnivorous plants and making a raised bed in which to grow them.  This is a very strong interest of Armand’s.  We’ll also start a butterfly garden this spring. 

5. I will be outside and active for at least one hour on all of our homeschooling days.

When I took Armand to his well-child appointment this year I thought to myself how wonderful it would be if his doctor said he needed to spend more time outside.  He didn’t say it but I realized that my little imaginary conversation meant I really wish to be outside more and want it to be deemed as important to daily life as learning to read or cleaning the house.  I want my family’s health to be my number one priority this winter-spring season.  Homeschooling allows many luxuries for my family, one being that we have full control over our schedule.  We have no excuse for not living healthfully – long nights of sleep, lungs full of fresh air, plenty of hiking and biking and playing ball, sunshine on our faces, lots of healthy food, little stress and lots of laughter.  We can do it all.  I just need to learn how. 

6. I will attend three live performances with Armand and Elio.

I have two events already planned at our local Arts Center – Jabali African Acrobats and Ballet Folklorico Mexico.  These are small events and they look great.  I want to also take them to a large event but I haven’t found the right thing yet. 

7. I will teach Armand and Elio to identify by sight and/or sound 30 birds.

Canada Goose, Mallard, Great Blue Heron, Black Vulture, Turkey Vulture, Red-Shouldered Hawk, Red-Tailed Hawk, Mourning Dove, Great Horned Owl, Eastern Screech Owl, Red-Bellied Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Blue Jay, American Crow, Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Nuthatch, Carolina Wren, Eastern Bluebird, American Robin, Wood Thrush, Gray Catbird, Northern Mockingbird, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Towhee, Dark-Eyed Junco, Northern Cardinal, Common Grackle, American Goldfinch, and House Sparrow. 

8. We will study artists Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, and musicians Antonio Vivaldi and Richard Wagner before June.

 

 

 

A Photo to Cherish

I have very few photos from my childhood and many of the ones remaining haven't been taken care of properly.  I have recently started scanning all my old photographs, those from my childhood up to Noah's and Eiley's early years.  You can see the damage forty years has done to this photo.  There is tape on it and several places where the image has peeled off.  I'm happy to be scanning the photos in the hopes that they will last a lot longer in digital form, but there is something magical about having an old photograph to hold in your hand.  This is the earliest photo I have of me with my dad.  I love to see us looking so young and happy. 

I love you so much Dad!  Happy Birthday!

Goodbye to 2012

We had a very quiet home-based holiday season this year. No traveling, no guests, and Joe was home for 2 1/2 weeks thanks to his first teacher's winter break.  It was different, and it was lovely.

My children wanted to have a Christmas party so I tried to find a way to engage them with their friends without an emphasis on more gifts and cookies.  Happily our homeschool group decided to come together to provide gifts for a family in need.  The family we were matched with is a single mother parenting her five children, ages 10 years to 10 months including a special needs 3 year old.  The mother doesn't work and doesn't speak English.  Each family in our group bought gifts from the provided wish list and we hosted a party at our house for the children to wrap all the gifts.   After the visiting, wrapping and eating lots of cookies several of us delivered the gifts to the family.  Her children were lovely.  As we were putting the gifts under their tree, her 10 year old boy thanked us and said 'I'm sorry we didn't buy gifts to give to you also' to which Elio replied 'You can next time'.  :)

Our plans for an evening bonfire with friends on the Winter Solstice were cancelled due to freezing temperatures and a high wind advisory.  We stayed home and opened a few gifts from relatives, as this was our 'Christmas Eve' with Noah and Eiley, but we didn't do anything solstice-y.

The next morning we celebrated Christmas Morning, Take I. 

my favorite Christmas photo of three of my kids

In the afternoon, Noah and Elio built a fire in a small metal bucket to roast marshmallows.

Christmas was spent at home as a family of four.  Here are the photos of opening gifts on Christmas Eve...

Armand opening card with 25 dollar bills to buy plants for his garden.

 

 ...and Christmas Morning. 

 

We spent New Year's Eve at home also, though not fully by choice.  On the 29th Armand came down with the flu, and Elio followed suit on the 31st. 

 I didn't mean to photograph Armand crying. I was lying between the boys on the bed and when I turned to take Armand's picture, he started crying.  I took his temperature after this and it read 105.3.  They are both mostly recovered and (knock on wood) no one else has gotten it. 

Welcome to Quetzal Academy

Quetzal Academy is the name of our little homeschool.

In the state of North Carolina you have to register your homeschool when a student reaches the age of seven, officially the first grade year. I was eager to register, to become official to the state, but needing to give our homeschool a name that will stay with it until the end made me anxious.

My husband and I discussed options: Should it include our last name? Our street or town name? Should it reference the educational philosophy that is guiding my education decisions...and will I still be aligned with that philosophy ten years from now? Should it be inspirational? Or should it sound like a 'real' school so their diploma doesn't embarrass the children years down the road?

I wanted the name to include the word 'liberty'. More than anything education has to be free, not forced. Schooling can be forced - you can require the hours be put in, you can give tests and grades, stickers for completing a chapter, or more time at the table for daydreaming when your child is not focused. But a real education cannot be forced.  It is not something that I can give to them, it is something that each of us have to take for ourselves. A real education is inspired from within. That is liberty in education. Unfortunate for me, my husband has negative associations with the word so we kept searching.

We started thinking about our sons' heritage. They are Guatemalan and became a part of our family through adoption. We went through Spanish words, Mayan words, significant town names in Guatemala, Mayan gods...searching, searching. And when we thought of the quetzal, we knew we had our answer.

The quetzal is the Guatemalan national bird and is the center of our family crest. To us it represents our connection to Guatemala and to nature. Quetzals are magnificent to look at and are rare to see in the wild. They were honored by the ancient Mayans and are still protected in Guatemala. And the best part? As they are nearly impossible to keep alive in captivity, they are a traditional symbol of liberty.  Ahhh.  Serendipity.