our dozen beautiful feet

Every spring since 2017, I've made the trek to Fort Worth to attend the Great Homeschool Convention, pretty much solely to sit in on the classical education track and investigate curricula at the vendor booths.  It has grown me so much and being able to speak personally to people like Dr. Christopher Perrin, Carol Reynolds, Andrea Lipinski, Adam Andrews and Andrew Kern has been challenging, formative, and inspiring in many ways. These conferences keep me going! For various reasons, I had decided not to go this spring.  But, thanks to coronavirus, the entire conference moved online! The past three days, I've sat in the comfort of my own bed and had the privilege of listening to these wise people, and being challenge and inspired for the coming school year. I have a composition book that has become my "GHC Notebook." I've used it exclusively for taking notes at GHC conferences the past four years. Yesterday after the conference, I flipped back through it to see...

Yes, you read that right. We are no longer Preedy Academy! When we moved to our new house, I had to update our address for our school registration, and thought I might take advantage of the opportunity to give us a more creative name that reflects our style more. Spero is a Latin word that can mean "I hope, I dream, I wonder, I Imagine." That about sums it up. Latin, Wonder, Imagination. So. These curriculum pick posts may be becoming a bit redundant, as about three years ago I really found our sweet spot and the people and companies we trust. There's not much deviation now. But I suppose each year we're doing a new grade level for the first time, and are figuring that out as we go. :) So here it is:  Time Period as a Family: Antiquity 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 Levi: 4th ...

It's two weeks away from the start of the school year. It's been hitting me this summer. Luke is doing Geometry. Geometry is a high school credit. I need to have a plan to keep track of actual grades and credits and such, at least for this one class.... Years ago, I purchased OLLY  for both my desktop and the iPad. I quickly realized it was more than I needed, and I couldn't figure out how to make it work for me at the time. So I abandoned it. But thankfully, I didn't delete it! I resurrected that dinosaur of an app this month and began tinkering around with it. It's going to work GREAT for me to keep up with grading assignments that really need to be graded, assigning credits and keeping track of what we need to get to graduation. I've set it up to give me accountability with grading. I don't have all the kids assignments in there. I just have plotted out the assignments and exams that will receive a grade. This year will be a trial run to see if I...

For the greater part of my adult life, I always knew when my next flight was.  The summer before my senior year of college I took my first trip overseas to Izmir, Turkey.  From the anticipation of that trip in 2000 until the summer of 2014, I was in a state of perpetual anticipating of the next flight. Those years of jet-setting every few months saw my life morph from a single college girl to a married working woman to a seasoned missionary and homeschooling mother of four. As a mother, I always thought the announcement at the beginning of every airplane ride was pretty unrealistic. What mother really puts the oxygen mask on herself first while her kid is sitting there struggling for breath? I always tried to picture myself doing that, and it always seemed wrong. I really do understand how badly things could go if mom passes out, but I never could wrap my head around that mental picture of just taking care of myself first. But. When it comes to educating our kids, I thi...

This year has been so full, so busy, and I'm really ready for it to be wrapped up. :) I taught four classes. I took a class. I started a part-time job in January from home. My autoimmune health has been all over the place. I've loved our studies, but I way over-planned. (What's new?!?) We ended up totally dropping both Memoria Press programs, as well as the Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe.  My older two kids started doing two hours a day at the local middle school which left them with less time at home each day. We had to pull back and focus on the main things. And I learned a lot from this. Like: -orchestra, drama, choir are REALLY worth our time and not getting in the way of the curriculum, they are a majorly important part of the curriculum -more books and academics is not necessary for a quality education or a happy life -it's okay to do some of a program and not all of it, to scale things to what we need -it's ok to leave plenty of whi...

Last spring,  I went to the Great Homeschool Convention in Fort Worth, TX with a big question. For a couple of years, I had been studying the liberal arts on my own. I'd read pretty widely and thought I understood the first three arts, the trivium.  As I began to try to understand the quadrivium, I had read The Liberal Arts Tradition by Clark and Jain, as well as Beauty for Truth's Sake by Stratford Caldecott. I still didn't even begin to understand what the quadrivium was about. I went to the conference ready to ask people for their thoughts on how to teach the quadrivium. I left pretty unsatisfied. I got varying answers from "teach sol-fa for music" to "let them take a drafting class" to "teach them what home means."  I knew I would not make any progress at this point without a guide.   A few weeks later, I heard that a new class was being offered by the CiRCE Institute. It would be The Atrium with Andrew Kern on the seven liber...

It seems no matter how much time I spend preparing, once we get started on a school year there will inevitably be some tweaks that are needed. This year, it was in the area of language arts for my younger kids. I'm not entirely surprised by this. I have a plan that I veered from this year.  Typically, I use Cottage Press Primer for 2nd grade, then begin Writing & Rhetoric in 3rd grade. Levi is in a co-op class and the majority of his class was not ready to begin Writing & Rhetoric, and I felt it would be a stretch for him.  So I had to figure out something else for this year to stretch him toward readiness for it next year.  Meryn also just did not seem quite ready to take on Cottage Press Primer 1. Her handwriting needs work. She's just starting All About Spelling Level 2. Her reading is right on beginner 2nd grade level and we need work on that.  So I had to find something to stretch her as well that was not part of my original plan. Since I've been he...