Laurel Academy

It's Monday, it's rainy, I'm a tad sniffly, and it's sooooo close to the end of the school year. Do I feel like being productive or creative? No, I do not. I feel like sitting in a comfy chair with a warm beverage and a great book. But that would not be responsible and it would teach Will bad habits like taking time for oneself on occasion or that social rules are nothing but convention and should be regularly questioned and at times broken. Certainly we can't have that. Anyway, here's what I did and I am awfully proud: I had the boys (Ryan is home today too) listen to a number of episodes of a history podcast that they love (shout out to Historium ) and then write and perform a play of their favorite episode. They have been working on this project for close to two hours now. I have gotten a bunch of work done for my pesky actual job and now I'm in my room sitting in a moderately comfortable chair about to open an entertaining book that I started over the we...

A bunch of people have asked us what we are doing for schoolwork and if we are following a partiular curriculum. The answer to the latter question is no. Because we are homeschooling only in the short term, we are taking an ad hoc approach. We did purchase an online math program, which allows Will to learn math concepts at his own pace. We like it because it lays out what skills and are expected for a kid his age, and it doesn't make him practice skills that he's already demonstrated he's mastered. And of course it provides a lot of practice problems and tutorials for concepts that he's learning. Math is kind of delicate for us because he entered fifth grade loving math and exited school midway through the year hating and fearing math. This was so out of character for him that it hasn't been too hard getting him back into it, but it has been a bit of a process. He's progressing rapidly and will complete the sixth-grade curriculum by the time he starts school in ...

Last week both kids were off from school. I still had to teach at my paying job and attend a few meetings, but I took it pretty easy last week too. We had some really nice times (we bought trail bikes for the whole family!) and some challenging times (the usual -- arguments between kids, arguments between kid(s) and parent(s), arguments between parents). Overall it was a good, refreshing set of days of limited responsibility. But, as it does every year, the end of break approached. We have a certain precocity in our family that permits us to perceive horrors like Monday as early as Friday (the last "real" day of spring break), which is just what happened. But we pressed on to enjoy the weekend, which included a rainy Earth Day spent planting a butterfly garden with friends and a sunny next day spent wandering a local garden. The boys would probably tell you that the peak event came Sunday evening, when I introduced them to "Macolm in the Middle," a show that we can ...