our dozen beautiful feet

I'm a planner. I like to have a plan. I'm slightly obsessed with curriculum research. Lucky for me I'm really also obsessed with a classical education for my kids (and me), which narrows down my potential curricula to research.  The past five years, I've looked at almost everything out there to find just what will provide us with the most richly restful, and diligently delightful education.  My oldest child is officially starting high school in just four weeks. I have worked the past two years to come up with a solid plan that leaves as little room for discontent, guessing, and changes as possible.  Dr. Perrin outlines some problems with the frenetic pace of high school for a lot of students in this article and urges us to a measured approach instead.  In conference talks over the past two years, I've heard him prescribe his solution (though he's never written another article outlining it), and here it is.   He suggests that to give our high school students a f...

It's time for my year-in-review.  These post have come to mark a sense of accomplishment for me. They're milestones in our school-as-life journey. I can easily see my own growth and change as I look back on this set of posts from the past six, seven, eight years.  My 2019-20 plans post goes over how and why I chose these things. So this year went almost to plan. I tried a few new things, and had some hits and misses.  Here's how it shaped up. Meryn: 3rd grade:  Language :  -All About Spelling Level 3 -McGuffey Reader Book 1 & 2 -Writing Through Ancient History by Brookdale House -Song School Latin 2 Math:  -Math-U-see Gamma We accomplished all of this. I saw Meryn take big strides this year in her reading, reading comprehension, math skills, and slower, but steady gains in spelling.  I've learned to adapt the spelling for her.  She needs smaller bits and more hands on, less dictation.  So we've moved more to ...