Yesterday, one their way home from Eider’s mountain biking group, he asked Chris where his favorite place that he’s ever lived is. And Chris said, honestly, it’s probably here. It’s beautiful and as much as we may feel isolated right now, that he likes Vermonters. Yeah, I can see that, was Eider’s response. So Chris asked if he liked Mount Horeb the most so far and Bear’s response was simply that he had felt really well connected there and like he had a great friend group. Such a simple answer. But without any charge at all and to me emblematic of a simultaneously subtle and huge shift happening for him.
I think I have shared before that Eider, while very social and outgoing, can also tend toward the melancholic. I watch this in him. Sometimes with worry, and at other times with frustration, but always with a lot of empathy. No matter who you are, adolescence can be rugged, and navigating big life changes- a cross country move, a new brother, a global pandemic, to name a few- in the midst of what can already feel like enormous change, well, it can be a lot.
I have been worried. I have been trying to figure out what I can do. I have wanted to get something right for him. He was just starting to make some friends and feel some hope in connection in his new home when we all turned within. He went from a little floundering to out and out sad. I mostly shut down homeschooling for him around April. We did the bare minimum. Which was… not much. I let him retreat into his xBox for a couple of hours every day, thinking that at least there was some semblance of connection for him there with people outside of our small family bubble. It hasn’t been my best parenting move, but also by no means my worst. I am definitely in some stage of internal negotiations with myself around how much video game time is beneficial in terms of respect and honoring and development of my son vs how much is aggravating already strong tendencies within him that lean toward frustration, anger, sadness, and well, melancholy.
So, anyway, I have been watching. I have also been scrambling to find a plan for this fall that is both honoring as well as inspiring and tends his natural curiosity, intelligence, and creativity. I do not know if it is for me or for you, but I am going to share some of the details of what we are doing right now. Because, honestly, not to jinx anything, but it feels just right. And if the little moment of conversation around place that Eider and Chris had is any indication, and I believe that it really is, a shift is happening for him. He is beginning to feel a new and real spark of inspiration and dare I say hopefulness rise up and I am starting to see it spill out. More than I have since the beginning of Covid- that is for sure. But I think just maybe more than I have since the month or so before we drove with all of our animals, and people, and stuff away from North Third Street some 15 months ago.
A quick note on mountain biking before I jump into the specifics of curriculum and schedule. Eider is riding three afternoons a week with The Stowe Mountain Bike Academy. He did a little bit with them in the summer. And that was great. Great enough to entice him into further participation. However, there were enough out of state kids there to make him nervous at best and out and out stressed at worst. It is easy enough to practice distancing on trails and bikes, pulling up masks any time they stop for some instruction. But now, with just local- and quite a few newly local- kids in his small group, I think he feels easy, and excited, and inspired. He is loving these afternoons on the bike in ways that he never has before. He is coming home lit up in a way that I haven’t seen since a victorious lacrosse game, or a thrilling orchestra rehearsal. I am beyond thankful for this experience for him right now and I see it’s potential to only build for him as well as the way in which it is rooting him in his new place in such a way that perhaps nothing else could have. Or at least not with this particular poignancy and grace. And tell you what, it is much different to say yes to time on the xBox when your kid has been stretching himself on his bike all while spending meaningful time in nature. He even said that they had to scrap a plan to session a particular bit of trail when they happened upon a black bear. Cautiously observing for a bit before quietly finding a new place to skill build.
I
Love
This
(Also, a note to me. Right now as I work on this, Eider has brought his violin downstairs to do his practice for his family, something that doesn’t happen much these days. Most days he is in his room during one of Wilfred’s naps playing with his mute. Anyhow, it is amazing, and wow has he improved since the last time we were lucky enough for a family concert.)
Alright, so, some nitty-gritty curriculum details. Grade Six Style.
Two pieces of important information right off the bat: I am not a fan of many curriculums, and certainly not ones geared toward an entire grade. I am hodgepodge to be sure. Also, Vermont’s homeschool standards are ridiculous to navigate, especially coming from Wisconsin which is at the opposite end of the spectrum. I can see the pros and cons of both. Much of what I am going to include here is what I had to submit to the state August first. Sort of. lol.
Math: This is an easy place to start because we have a bit of a if it’s not broken don’t fix it mentality with math. It was a nightmare for us for years, basically, I get very bad at teaching anything beyond 4th-grade mathematics, so, thanks to a recommendation from another homeschool mama, we have been using Mathhelp.com ever since Maple was in 5th-grade math. Other than their, at times, difficult customer support, I think that it is a great program. Thorough without being overwhelming. In my experience, most homeschool kids always think that they are behind at math, and when Maple went to eighth-grade last year, a little nervous about this to be sure, she found that instead she was a little bit ahead and well enough equipped to add a second math to her schedule for the year.
Literacy/Reading/Writing: As I have discussed at length before, and no doubt will continue to for the foreseeable future, both Maple and Eider are Dyslexic. We had a phenomenal tutor in Wisconsin who used the Orton-Gillingham approach to great success with both of them. That said, there is no easy fix when it comes to dyslexia and more often than not it is a lense that affects all aspects of not just learning, but knowing as well. At this point, we use hardly any workbooks- thank goodness- save one. And that is the Explode The Code Phonics series. We have found these to be both doable and useful in a progressive way that doesn’t contribute to Eider feeling crappy about himself. Which is, in my opinion, the far more worrisome obstacle to navigate for dyslexics than delayed reading.
We also use Brave Writer programs for much of our reading, writing, and grammar study. This will be our second year using the Arrow guides for a monthly novel selection. I cannot really speak highly enough about these materials and the approach in general. They utilize a read-aloud approach, which is a backbone to our home learning culture, as well as copy work and dictation and a book club approach to learning spelling, grammar, and literary devices. This year, we are also adding Brave Writer’s Partnership Writing program which explores a different writing project each month. This month we began with Secret Codes. Additionally, we do a free-write each week, sometimes just a few fantastical sentences, other times a letter to a friend, and we also have Poetry Teatime once a week. Both of these are concepts gleaned from what I have learned from Julie Bogart of Brave Writer.
Also worth noting. This is the heft of our homeschool. We are, more or less, a humanities and literature family. Not so much a science or math family. We read. We listen. We talk. That is a huge part of our family culture. And it works well for us. I also really believe, in the words of Sarah Makenzie from the Read-Aloud Revival, if you are reading and having meaningful discussions, that is enough.
Science: Like I said, not really a sciences family. Or, more accurately, we are more drawn to the natural sciences than we are things like Chemistry and Biology, and more than anything, I am not one to force learning in a direction in which there is scant interest. I have learned that the hard way. More than once. Eider was in a couple of STEM classes last year with a local homeschool group and that was great, took the pressure off of me for sure. But that is not happening this year and I am not really interested in finding him something online. Last year, until Covid shut it down, he was in an outdoor program with Earth Walk Vermont. This, among other things, offers a great natural history education. We are hopeful that there will be something with them able to start up again in the coming weeks, but that is, of course, uncertain. It seems doable though, as they exist entirely outside, rain, shine, or snow.
So, at home for science this fall, we have decided to focus on birds. Simple and lovely. We have pulled out a book that we loved several years ago called The Wind Masters: The Lives of North American Birds of Prey, and in conjunction with The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America, we are slowly and gently exploring birds, looking up any questions that arise and watching videos of various bird behaviors.
I also have him listen to Radio Lab kids a few times each week. Often the topic is something science-y, or cultural, or historical. I love this, along with a whole bunch of other podcasts that I will try to include here.
History: This is a big one. Eider actually loves History a ton and as much as the State of Vermont wants us to focus at this age on Vermont’s History, and we will, by taking advantage of the now online monthly programs available through the Vermont Historical Society, Eider also has a keen interest in World History. So we are digging deep and exploring 2 texts that I have had for several years: The Human Odyssey, 1400-1914, and 1914- through the present. We are also paying special attention to Black American History in our reading as well as our listening. We just completed Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism, and You. This was a great introduction to what I hope will be, what really must be, a forever conversation. We also just finished listening to the NY Times 1619 Podcast and I think that continuing to utilize the podcast platforms for this particular type of educating of ourselves is ideal. Another podcast that Eider listens to each week is This Week in History. I highly recommend this as well as What You Missed in History Class. Both are excellent at exposing the histories that were certainly absent in my middle and high school education.
Arts: Our focus here is the Violin and Music Study. He continues to study classical music in the Suzuki Method, just recently previewing the first piece of Book 4, which feels like a very big deal. Seitz! Orchestra looks like it is off the table right now, in addition to any fiddling groups, but we are keeping the faith none the less.
We are also practicing drawing birds each week that feels fresh and low-risk. No big visual arts project at this point but some attention toward a particular medium. I am into that. When my sister visits in the next month, the two of them will do some tie-dying which is absolutely Eider’s speed.
Health: OK. This is awesome. Eider and I are reading It’s Perfectly Normal, and I highly, highly recommend this to everyone. I only wish that I had known about this particular series earlier, but I will start them off with Wilfred when it is time for sure. It cover’s literally everything, so, forewarned. We are a talk about it all family and it can still get a little edgy for us. I am into it. I am also trying to get Eider into the kitchen more by making something new, start to finish, each week. This week we made a fruit galette. Yum.
Jeez, are you still reading? I know that there are a few more subjects that I was supposed to submit on, but all I can remember right now is P.E. which personally I think is dumb and remember how I said that Eider is having a ball on his Mountain Bike? So, yeah, that.
As ever, feel free to reach out if you have any questions, or have something that has worked awesome for you that I need to know about. But this is what I’ve got today. Thanks for reading!
xxx,m
edited to say:
For whatever reason, writing this post not only took me 2 days but also totally took it out of me in general and I kinda scrambled to wrap it up. Something that I failed to mention at the time(s) of writing, has to do with schedule. We are, for the most part, setting aside 2 hours each weekday for homeschool. Not including violin practice or lesson, and sometimes including, but most often not, working through his list of podcast listening for the week. This schedule bit applies to me as well, and I am trying to get better on how I use my time as well. More boundaried with a better plan. Maybe I’ll share a bit about that soon as well.