The Autodidact

Ahh, the week of Thanksgiving. I look forward to the feast we will have this week, as I do every year. While folks are panicking, I am relaxed. Why? Because I do a little bit every day to avoid last minute running around. First things first: there is NO school this week! We all take a break and help prepare for the big meal on Thursday. Secondly, I plan very easy dinners this week, or use leftovers. 1. By the Monday of Thanksgiving week, my shopping is done, so no last minute trips to the grocery store. If I need bread to make my stuffing, this is the day I will bake bread. I make enough so there is enough left over for toast and sandwiches, too. I also make my pie crusts. I do not roll them out, but I flatten them a bit and store them in a stack with parchment paper or plastic wrap in between each crust, then cover with plastic wrap, and put in the fridge. I wipe out my oven thoroughly so we don't have to smell something burning all day while the turkey cooks. I put the frozen...

Grammar. It's a word that strikes fear and confusion into the hearts of many home educators. Most folks are either convinced they do not know enough about it to teach it to their kids, or they know enough but don't know how to teach it to their kids. If you fall into either category, let me help you. Do you speak English? Yes? Then you are more than halfway there to being qualified to teach your child grammar. OK but what about the rest? I can help with that, too. There are only 8 parts of speech, so once you know those, you are in luck, and 3/4 of the way to being qualified to teach your child grammar! And you thought this would be painful, impossible, even. So now we get down to the nitty gritty. Conjunctions: There are three kinds: coordinating, subordinating and correlative. Coordinating ones, such as 'but' and 'and' and 'yet', join phrases and clauses. Subordinating conjunctions, and there are many, join a subordinate clause to the main c...

22 years with this man. Dependable, quiet, kind, generous, gentle, hard working, faithful. I could go on, but you get the idea. 22 years of growing and learning, of raising kids and doing the mundane. I have had his unfailing support in our home education journey. He cleans up when the kids throw up or the dog messes in the house. He fixes things. He has seen me at my absolute worst countless times, yet still loves me. Every morning and every evening, he says goodbye and greets me with a hug and a kiss. No matter what I look like. He can still make my heart skip a beat. The knitting together of two lives is mysterious. How does it work? What makes it last? Why did he choose to love me? What exactly is it that binds us so tightly together? I am stubbornly, unequivocally, get-out-of-my-way committed to this man. He is just stuck with me and that's that. And I think he feels the same about me. Here's to 22 years of marriage. Thank you, Lord, for this man. Pho...

I went trick or treating when I was a kid, and even as a teenager. I was in it for the candy and maybe the costume (if I had come up with a really good one) and for the scare factor. But that was it; it wasn't like I couldn't wait for Halloween. It was a day like most any other, and could take it or leave it. My folks seemed to tolerate the day and weren't really into it, except that one year my dad hid in the bushes and jumped out at some trick or treaters. Halloween fell off my radar until I had kids of my own. It was fun to find cute little costumes and parade them around the neighborhood, collecting candy that they either couldn't eat or couldn't keep track of, allowing me to indulge. The kids enjoyed it, but it wasn't that big of a deal. But after a few years, it just didn't feel right. Maybe because decorations and costumes became markedly darker. Maybe I was changing. I'm not sure, but one year, we decided to just hand out some candy but not t...

Recently, a woman diagnosed with terminal brain cancer committed suicide. She made her decision very public and drew much attention from right-to-die and right-to-life folks alike. Death with dignity. The right to choose one's own destiny. The right to die when and where and how it suits the individual. It all sounds so reasonable, except that it's not. Physician assisted death is really a euphemism for suicide, which is, in turn, a euphemism for murder, or at the least, a name for a particular type of murder. Death is not very dignified, it's not meant to be. It is the ultimate slap in the face, the ultimate losing of control. It's terrifying and uncertain and out of our governance. But how we die is not really about us, it's about our loved ones and our caregivers. It's about letting those around us rise above it all and give us the love and care they want us to have, to comfort us, to be with us to the end. I have had the privilege of sitting with three...

So many eager, new home educators excitedly buy curricula for their little ones, not wanting to waste any precious moments where there could be learning going on. I know I did with my first. I didn't spend a large amount of money, but I did spend a fair amount of time reading, researching and gathering just the "right" materials for my child. It didn't go as well as I had hoped. I was so busy trying to fit my child into a pre-made notion of how and what she should be learning, that I lost sight of the fact that she was still very much a baby. All I really needed was right in front of me. There is no need to spend money on curricula for kids 5 and under. The publishing companies love that new home educators are scared and unsure and want to give their kids the best education out there, because moms  just couldn't possibly be able to come up with something on their own.  And so we have companies that sell materials for kids 5 and under.  And we also have moms ...