No. 45/Autumn

Hi and welcome! I follow a number of substacks now and often forget why I follow people here until I’m halfway through their note. So just to recap…this is a substack primarily about homeschooling. We use of a mix of curriculum, Classical Conversations, and relaxation. Our family of seven lives in Vermont in the United States. Here we go…

Lately when I run into friends asking for an update, I find myself giving them a quick summary of the stage of life I’m in. It goes like this. “I have a baby, who just turned one. He’s walking, trying to climb things, taste-testing everything. My 6yr old is learning to read and write. I do short checklists with her and she’s done with most of her schoolwork within an hour every day. My 9yr is taking two classes that have homework each week for the first time. She likes to learn on her own but now she has more than ever to keep up with. My 12yr old is in a challenging program for 7th grade with daily homework in seven different subject areas. And my 14yr old is in our public high school!”

Despite having done the baby thing four other times already, I am surprised to yet again realize how draining the physical work of a toddler is! It is full engagement with the briefest respites for naps. And then a longer break at night, when it is far too tempting to stay up and dwell in the stillness instead of sleep!

My brain often feels like there is a row of buckets and I’m going to dollup a certain amount in each bucket and hope they fall in fairly. Er...not fairly, but fall in the way they need to, for the needs at that time. But it also feels like a pyramid, with some of my wishes for the family at the top (a tidy home, reasonable bedtimes, healthy meals, good books at hand), and everyone helping me build the foundation needed underneath to keep those up.

I’ve been reflecting on our last school year. I resist the idea that childhood is a glowy time full of whimsy, inspiration, cheer and vision. Childhood is naturally also full of profound anxiety, transitions, cavities and fillings, nightmares, dreams, pushing boundaries, picking scabs, eczema, hugs that make you feel choked, needling, grouchy feelings…BUT.

When I look back on homeschool 24-25, frankly I don’t remember how hard it was. I don’t remember if it was hard at all. All that rises to the top, like the tiny purple flowers crescendoing on the oregano branches in the corner of our garden, are the good moments learning together. The ones I couldn’t have predicted when I was nervously saying yes to another year of homeschooling, this time with a newborn in arms. Reading a complicated logic curriculum out loud with my 13yr old and laughing together when we didn’t understand it. Typing up my 11yr old’s papers while she carefully composed her sentences in her head. Watching our governor’s State of the State together to get ready for TeenPact. Learning about different elements of the periodic table and making notebooks about them. Going to the fair together. Going for walks together; particularly when the snow made a thick layer for us to walk through the woods, our feet several feet high off the ground. Reading aloud The History of Medicine, a biography of Bonhoeffer, the Borrowers, and The War that Saved My Life. It was an epic year of the 6th grader listening to dozens of audiobooks. It was the year of family walks. It was the year the mock trial judge said “Thank you to the parents for helping their kids work so hard on this,” and I shook my head as my 13yr old looked at me shaking her head. She worked so hard and owned it, I was managing my household and feeding my baby. It was the year the 9yr old did almost no “real” schoolwork besides reading books and writing letters, all day every day. It was the year of penpals, and reams of stamps leaving my home 73 cents at a time. It was year of the oldest two reading all the Series of Unfortunate Events and then watching all the shows together.

It was an irreplaceable year.

More Writing on the Alpha School

I have mentioned the Austin Alpha school a few times in this newsletter. Recently a dad of a few students that attend there wrote up as much as he could about their system. A good read about a highly unique setup!

I hope our public schools can beginning pivoting in this direction—using software that can identify students’ progress on foundational academic subjects, catch any missed concepts, and avoid the plague of “I’m not a math person” and other fatalistic thoughts that come out of simply not understanding concepts as they are introduced.

What the kids are reading?

14yr old: Ready Player One, Ender’s Game, and the Divergent series. It’s a dystopian time.

12yr old: The False Prince series & The Witchcraft of Salem Village

9yr old: The Yotsuba&! manga + the new Lucy Knisley Sugar Shack, we all love Lucy!

6yr old: The New Girl, a graphic novel about a Romanian immigrant teen living in Toronto. Love her illustration style.

A True Halloween Read 🦇 

I think of Shirley Jackson as one of America’s eeriest writers because she spanned actual horror writing as well as mundane peer-inflicted suburban horror. A gothic observer of mom culture, she also suffered from anxiety and had a difficult marriage, and I think you get those tension vibes in her writing. So having her write the history of the Salem witch trials was a perfect match, in my opinion. She nails the way Puritan society had set it self up for such an awful series of mass hysteria. You can find used copies of this book online, or maybe your library has it? Fascinating for adults and children alike.

What I'm Reading ✨

Recommending this memoir/autobiography to you. It is funny, thoughtful, humble and astounding. Definitely in the running for my favorite read of the year. Alexei Navalny attempted to run for president of Russia against Putin. All kinds of pathetic walls were thrown up against his efforts—fake protestors hired to create mob scenes at his events, false accusations leading to months spent in jail, his campaign offices being looted, women hired to try to get damaging photos with him, and when all that failed, being poisoned. I think he was probably a great writer, but also I think this book had an amazing editor because it’s just a delightful read.

In the end, he gave his life for his country; the better version of Russia that he thought Russia deserved. In a time when we watch Trump use taxpayers’ money to send American forces into American cities and create an industry of private jail camps across the country...It is GOOD to be able to read a modern historical perspective showing the slow arc of a power-grabbing, golden-toilet-building world leader from the perspective of an articulate, optimistic, funny, hopeful, God fearing writer.

Alexei Navalny’s Patriot

Thinking about Buying…

The twelve Maestro Classics recordings, available as MP3, on sale for $89.50. My friend Susie reviewed these saying, “I can’t overstate how impactful these CDs have been in our family life.” Read her full review here!

And a quote for you

A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six

1. To recite, beautifully, 6 easy poems and hymns.
2. To recite, perfectly and beautifully, a parable and a psalm.
3. To add and subtract numbers up to 10, with dominoes or counters.
4. To read--what and how much, will depend on what we are told of the child.
5. To copy in print-hand from a book.
6. To know the points of the compass with relation to their own home, where the sun rises and sets, and the way the wind blows.
7. To describe the boundaries of their own home.
8. To describe any lake, river, pond, island etc. within easy reach.
9. To tell quite accurately (however shortly) 3 stories from Bible history, 3 from early English, and 3 from early Roman history.
10. To be able to describe 3 walks and 3 views.
11. To mount in a scrap book a dozen common wildflowers, with leaves (one every week); to name these, describe them in their own words, and say where they found them.
12. To do the same with leaves and flowers of 6 forest trees.
13. To know 6 birds by song, colour and shape.
14. To send in certain Kindergarten or other handiwork, as directed.
15. To tell three stories about their own “pets”--rabbit, dog or cat.
16. To name 20 common objects in French, and say a dozen little sentences.
17. To sing one hymn, one French song, and one English song.
18. To keep a caterpillar and tell the life-story of a butterfly from his own observations.

-From Ambleside. Charlotte Mason included in her Original Homeschool Series books some lists of attainments, goals or objectives to be met by certain ages.

Who’s ready to mount a scrapbook of wildflowers?

fondly,

Rachael