I mean to post more often, thinking it would only take 10 or 15 minutes a day... But those 15 minutes are so often and so easily taken up with bass playing, reading, crafting, cuddling...

Last week Joe and Sarah started a math adventure Joe created for them -- the adventures of Stitches, the pirate teddy bear -- that involves arithmetic and code-solving and clues... Sarah's having a great time with that. They've also been reading Harriet the Spy together.

Sarah and I worked on our family magazine, on learning to sew dresses together, on baking, on crossword puzzles, on sudoku... Read some Story of the World, some Dr. Seuss, some magazines. We watched Schoolhouse Rock and the second National Treasure movie, and played games (Munchkin, Life, Apples to Apples). We also met with friends who are interested in doing school with us, this year, and made some plans together.

The rules we're bringing forward from last year:
* the Stop rule (treat others with respect and compassion; listen when others ask us to stop something that's affecting them)
* treat others' property with respect
* do not unreasonably restrict anyone's movement or speech
* no feet on tables

We decided to stick with mediation first for conflict resolution, then interrogation (which will, apparently, involve straight-backed chairs and bare lightbulbs!), then JC (judicial committee) if mediation fails, and to use facilitated discussions for our decision-making process, instead of formal meetings.

We've got a huge list of classes and activities we're planning to do together, this year. I'm *really* looking forward to it.

I asked Sarah, if we could do anything with our weeks, what would she want them to look like?

The American Museum of Natural History, Liberty Science Center, going to the park. Playdates with friends, field trips with friends. Making hot cocoa and brownies and cuddling up together on the futon. Dancing, definitely. Make music. Watch movies together. Lots of parties.

What does she want to learn?

Math, Science. Cooking, Sewing. More imaginary road trips.

During playschool we read:
Amelia Bedelia and the Surprise Shower
Bread is for Eating (a simple story with gorgeous illustrations)
The Way To Start A Day (lovely and magical, like everything by Byrd Baylor)

We talked about how we can celebrate sunrise and printed out a calendar that lists times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset, as well as the phase of the moon. We decorated it and stuck it on the wall.

We made cards and wrote them out to send to friends and family.

We baked challah bread and brownies, and had sandwiches and dip and spaghetti for lunch, while we watched Schoolhouse Rock America as our "and a movie".

Sarah did some more writing for her homework (finishing up her card to K) and some math (from her Time and Money book). I did some physics problems for my homework.

Our daily rhythms -- a good place to start

A number of folks have been curious about our homeschooling activities and how we spend our days. Keeping track of these things here and then just giving out the URL seems to be the easiest way to do that. Figured I'd start at the very beginning, with a quick runthrough of what our days tend to look like.

Every once in a while, Sarah and I sit down and talk about what we want our days and weeks to look like, and about what activities we want to include and what sorts of things she wants to learn. Then we work out a daily rhythm that fits all these things in, put it up on the wall, and do our best to stick to it until the next time we reconsider our goals. (Or, as Sarah said when I asked her how to describe it, "until we do it all again!")

A lot of this will be changing once the co-op is really underway, I expect. But in the meantime, this is more or less what our days look like:

* Wake up and cuddle
* Solo time (Sarah usually watches TV, I usually putter on the laptop)
* Breakfast
* Sweeps (tidying up) and getting dressed/brushing teeth/etc.
* Play school (we sing a few songs, each pick a book or story to be read aloud, and do a project together)
* Snack
* Assign ourselves homework and fill in our daily plan
* Relaxed, expansive play (the phrase is from when we were doing Enki - basically I putter, do housework or gardening or practice the bass, and Sarah does her own thing nearby)
* Lunch and a movie
* Rest/Quiet Time
* Afternoon Adventure (baking or gardening or sewing, or getting out of the house)
* Practice work and a snack
* Expansive play
* Settling time (Sarah and I have some focused time together right before Joe gets home)

Then Joe and Sarah have some focused time while I finish making dinner.

Almost none of our days looks exactly like this. Every day has at least one exception or surprise. But this is the rhythm we return to, time and again, to guide our choices.

Huh. Blogger lost my entire reading list, apparently -- it tells me I'm not following any blogs.

We're home from 2 days at Lake George, a sort of classic summer vacation, for me -- wave pools, arcades, mini golf, ice cream shops... I'm rested, vacationed, and incredibly tan (for me, which mostly means a significant increase in the freckle population). I made progress on my crochet projects -- both of which have been making me very happy. It feels so good to have something to work on, to look forward to, to watch the progress of, without the stress of deadlines or other people's needs/expectations. Just me and my pretty blue filet crochet... :)

We were watching Ice Age with Sarah, earlier. It was pretty good -- reasonably entertaining, and except for a bit at the beginning where they kill off (surprise!) the human mother, not too distressing. But give me a break, would it have been so hard to make *one* of the main characters a girl? Were they afraid that being female is such a bizarre and otherworldly quality that it would have tainted or derailed the whole story? Because, I'll tell ya, in my experience you wake up, put your pants on, and go about your life for days at a time without having to sit down in the middle of the street, blinking and scratching your head at the weird and wonder-ful fact of being a Girl. I don't even collapse in hysterics much, these days -- "wait, I'm not a boy? How'm I supposed to leave the house?!" It's certainly nothing to get in the way of, say, taking a long walk in the snow to reunite some kid with his dad.

Now, I can absolutely enjoy movies that are intentionally about a group of guys -- Stand By Me, say, made perfect sense to be about a group of just boys -- because at that age girls really *are* bizarre and otherworldly creatures. Bringing one in would've changed the story. And I don't mind the tendency for individual lead characters to be men, not all that much -- I identify as much with Wolverine as with any female superhero -- the fact that he's a guy in no way makes me feel like I can't access my inner Logan (of course, I also had no trouble playing Prince Charming when we played fairy tales as kids). But in a movie like this, an ensemble movie in which there is *absolutely* no plot-based reason to make them all guys... I've gotta assume it was just because it never even *occurred* to them to make one of the animals a girl. Because girls only exist to interact with the main (male) characters, right? To be mother, girlfriend, temptress, prize... Heaven forbid she should just *exist*, just be living her own story, having her own adventure, not looking to be an accessory, not looking to be anything in relation to him at all...

Ugh.

One of the things I'm choosing to let go of, as we start the long, gentle waning of the year, is perfectionism and the need to control (control outcomes, control people's perceptions, control my own emotions). Of course, as soon as I put this intention out there, I was hit with several opportunities to face the overwhelming waves of embarrassment I feel when I express myself strongly or honestly (in that particular kind of honesty that makes me feel vulnerable or exposed).

I don't know how extroverts do it. How they just stand up and put themselves out there, living outloud where anyone can see, all the time.

Something new to breathe through...

On the other hand, though, I've got my two mothering necklaces (one a gift from Sarah and Joe for mother's day, a few years ago, and the other a reflection of the feminine Divine I chose for myself), reminding me to nurture and mother myself -- and I'm feeling warmed and nurtured just by knowing the reminders are there...