I can't believe it's been a month since I was last here. It's especially hard to believe because I look back at my last entry and have no idea what we've done since then. Reading about gods and goddesses, about planets, doing math... Hosting a gathering for IDEA and having some great conversations about the nature of learning, talking about whether there's anything everyone should learn, and what "should" means in this context (required, encouraged, or some other option). We're also talking a whole lot about human biology, and reproduction, and puberty. Oh -- she's been writing some lyrics, and last night we wrote the outline of a story, together.

We've shifted into a new way of playing school together -- adding some solo-reading time for Sarah to our old routine of story time and project/lesson time, and making a concerted effort to do some narration every day we play school. Right now it varies from day to day, whether she chooses to narrate by talking with me or Joe about what she read, or to draw a picture or write a few sentences based on what she and I did together. (and then, at dinner, Joe and I often narrate something we read or learned, that day, and maybe model drawing connections between different things we're learning, or talk about what questions it brought up for us)

We're also each picking one or two goals for the month. Hers are making new friends and improving her drawing. My goal is improving my music-making skills.

Our newest themes are fantasy, early US history, and math. So even though I'd consider myths to fall more under comparative religion or world culture than under fantasy, we're taking the opportunity to finish up the great collection of books of myths we took out of the library last month, and using the National Geographic Student Atlas and UNICEF's Children Just Like Me to follow up -- so today we read about Greek myths, then read a little about Greece (and Europe in general) in the Atlas, and Sarah's solo reading was about the life of a boy who lives on the island of Crete.

The other main thing we're doing right now is working on some lifestyle changes -- meditation, movement, practicing some cognitive behavioral techniques for managing stress -- that should help her manage the trip through pre-adolescence a little more easily, I hope.

I'm struggling a little, right now, with how best to support her. She gets so frustrated about writing and spelling. It obviously bothers her that it doesn't come more easily, but when I've suggested practicing 10 minutes a day, she vetos that idea. Right now my plan is to leave the offer out there, and to talk with her about my own frustration when things don't come easily to me, but I'm not sure whether that's the right approach. I'll give it a couple weeks, and then reconsider the situation.