November recap

Good books, good times

We went to the Audubon lands at Waterloo to watch the migration of the Sandhill Cranes.

We voted

We did science

We tailgated, sometimes with the Boychoir

Pumpkin beers were taking over, and so were giant bears

Calvin and I ran the turkey trot

Iris learned to help with the dishes

We spent a lovely weekend with my family at a lodge in middle of nowhere. And it snowed.

It snowed even more at home

But it melted before Thanksgiving

MST3K Thanksgiving marathon

The last game of the year, the last disappointment (we hope)

It's cold outside

Early morning friends

Calvin has had an adorable habit this year of getting up at the crack of dawn in order to be ready in time to walk his best friend to the bus stop. Aside from the cuteness, there are many hilarious things about this. First, I think I posted a year or two ago, or maybe even both times, about how nice it was to be able to sleep in, especially on winter mornings, instead of having to live on a traditional school schedule. Second, the bus stop is across from our house, so in order to walk her to the bus stop he often actually goes around the corner to meet her at her house first.

No doubt, it's cute.

This morning, as usual, even though it was frigid and snowing like crazy, he was up and out the door at 7:40. He meets his friend and they talk, play, do I-don't-know-what, while waiting for the bus, which comes around 7:50. The bus stop is right outside our door, and his friend usually has a parent there in addition to other parents there on foot or in cars, and now that it's cold I usually shut the door firmly behind him and go back to my coffee until he returns and we start school. This morning, though, I looked up from my crossword to find that it was already 8:00 and no kid. Jon and I both yelled upstairs—had we missed him? Nope, nowhere in the house. I looked out front—everyone was gone from the corner. In the moment before actual panic set in I quickly scanned the whitened neighborhood for signs in the snow, and there he was.

He had shoveled our driveway.

This is not what I meant...

...when I said I wanted to freeze some extra pumpkin to use over the winter.

Still not in school

I realize that recently my blogging has become more of a “where have we been” display throughout the summer months. Jon said last night that it looked a bit like Vladimir Putin Action Man: “here is us in Stratford”, “here we are with ice cream”, “and here in front of Mt. Hood”, etc., etc.

The truth is, it was a crazy, whirlwind of a summer. We were gone more weekends than we were home, and even our longer respites in town were filled with various community activities. It wasn’t planned that way; things just kept coming up, and what started as a summer with two trips planned quickly got a tad out of hand. The last few weeks have been our longest stay at home in months, and they've allowed me at least a little time to try and catch up in the garden and the house, but we have one more trip up our sleeves.

In the past we've been year round schoolers, but this year was a little different. When we first started homeschooling we were aiming for a very unschooling environment, and our summers were little different from our falls, winters, and springs, excepting, of course, for the weather. But in the past few years, as our methods have undergone a slow but decided evolution, have found ourselves more on the side of classical schooling. Now, in the fall, winter, and spring, our mornings are often spent at the kitchen table or a like place, studying or creating together. In the summers we continue to start our days with a little dabble of math and Spanish, but the rest of the day is often spent outside doing one thing or another. I guess you could call the cooler months our classical time, and the warmest months our unschooling time.

The truth being, though, that we still live the life of home learners who find "education" in everything we do.

So this fall, with one more trip still waiting in the wings, we are waiting until October to begin our classical learning months, and we are using the first couple of weeks of September to review a bit, and to plan the months ahead. Rather neatly, Calvin is right at the end of several books—Spanish, math, science, and grammar—meaning that when we get home and pick up classical lessons in October, it will be like a fresh start.

But until then, finishing up, reviewing, previewing, and planning ahead.