Today is the first time I have ever watched one of my children get on a yellow school bus. When people were awed that I homeschooled four kids, I used to tell them homeschooling wasn't much different than doing homework together. I take that back. It's one thing to be a cog in the great …
Category: Homeschool Life
Flash Contest Detour: No Microcosms, No Problem!
Each session of my 5000 Words class, we devote one week to flash fiction. The assignment is to enter a piece in Microcosms, which experiences a rather dramatic spike in entrants. 🙂 This morning when I opened my email, I found Microcosms is having technical difficulties this week, the week my students are to enter …
Continue reading Flash Contest Detour: No Microcosms, No Problem!
It Ain’t Easy Being Real
I'm a laissez-faire teacher, which is something out-of-control teachers say to make themselves feel better. The truth is, I'm more comfortable allowing my students to talk, so long as I can get them to say, with some degree of accuracy, what I was going to say anyway. Today we did a little self discovery. I …
Fearful, Tearful, Weirdful, and Rise
Fear. I wish I could cut it from my soul with a scissors. I wish I could lay on a comfy couch, talk its existence into oblivion, then charge myself $100/hour. I'd collect my fees and go on a vacation to the beach. I have an active imagination, so I fear things most people haven't …
I Wish I Could Be…
Imagine this. My six-year-old wearing his fuzzy pj's makes this imperious proclamation: "I wish I could be public schooled so I wouldn't have to walk all the way to the kitchen to get my rods." Those rods, to which he referred, were little color-coded blocks that enabled him to learn his fractions and multiplication tables …
5000 Words Poetry Lesson, 10-13 Year-Olds
I nearly jump out of my seat when students come up with bold, fresh images that sound like something out of open mic night. A year ago I decided to teach them simile. "A cat is like a kitten," someone offered. Now I have them churning out similes like: disappointment tastes like rocks. Fourteen tweens gather …
G is for Gabe
Gabe. At 11 he's already a gentleman. I've lost him behind a held-open door thinking he's coming. A Wendy's double burger with cheese, mustard, pickles, and lettuce will make his day. He could easily stuff down a Wendy's triple, if he could just dislocate his jaw like a python. Gabe will share his last Swedish …
Don’t Want to Forget: Garbage Sentences
"See, Mom." Gabe said as he handed me his grammar sentences, "They're not garbagy three-word sentences." "What's that?" I asked. "You know. Like you said before: 'garbagy three-word sentences.' These are definitely not that." I looked at his sentences. They were indeed lovely. Gabe writes sentences every day for several subjects: spelling (when he gets …
The Raw Homeschool Mom, My eBook
One of my goals last summer was to publish an eBook. I did it this summer-- better late than never. Were I not the perfectionist I am, it wouldn't have been all that monumental a task, but I am the queen of revisions. I read and re-read, suddenly hating this or that, spending hours and hours …
My Son: Into The Lion Habitat
Though most homeschool moms won't admit it, we have an unspoken code, a knowing nod, a fierce pride, and some definite do's and don'ts in the secret-circle. Homeschool moms share a marinesque kinship, forged through days of homeschool bootcamp, Â homeschool bleedout, homeschool hell-on-earth, homeschool soul-ripping, faith-stabbing, self-questioning, sanity-questioning homeschool days where we despaired of getting …
KL Griffiths 