{life with a curious and crazy 12 yr old}
End of Summer brings Samhain/Halloween dreams to the forefront – though November 1st of last year she was already designing her costume for this year, now is the time of deep decisions: Faerie Princess or Blue Faerie (not ‘The’ Blue Fairy, mind you, I’ve already been told). The practicing of henna patterns leads to facepainting which leads to dress up in a big way.
Other than her marvelous costume plans, she’s been mowing the lawn on the rider mower (she loves it, if she has her music on her, she dances along, if not, she sings at the top of her lungs), foraging for mushrooms, seeds, and flowers and snuggling the dog (they’re married, you know).
Every chance she gets, she begs for ice cream and sometimes we comply, we just love eating ice cream by the river. Lately her favorite is anything mint (though they were out of Mint Cookie the other day so they substituted Mint Moose Tracks and she lost her little mind with glee – and big chunks of chocolate…we are requesting smaller scoops from now on! Ha!). To go along with Summer pies, and the cookies she spontaneously bakes!
Tomorrow is a new day for her, as homeschool will officially start – we will still freeschool to a point, but with some added requirements and focus this year. It’s time to step up our game and get some work done. We’re starting a family short story reading group, implementing some math and geography lessons, and setting up a schedule (yes, because we’ve never had one but with the big changes going on in our life – it is time for one). Mostly, we are going to start a Nearing-Dewey pedagogical process I am developing: based on a trimester year, we orient through parent/teacher topics, then independent/student topics, then toward a community outreach project. Within that the weekly days will follow a set pattern of Topic, Questions, Definitions, Research, to Practice and within that a daily schedule of rote, research, and discussion/practice. I think it will take some time for us all to get on this train as it is a bit different from how we approach things up to now but we’re all (mostly) excited.
Onto new and exciting adventures!
Rock Bottom Homestead 