Our Very Own Renaissance

Well, we've dropped spelling for the rest of this year. That might not seem like much but our 2nd grade year ends in August. This has been a major year of change and growth! We adopted Tapestry of Grace as our history program in January to help us get over the two month break we took after MIL's fight with cancer ended and my faithful companion- our 15 year old dog Magnum, passed away as well. Add a severely twisted ankle and bringing Jack, our golden retriever puppy home and throw in a few major holidays- voila, a two month break.

Tapestry has been wonderful for us, there has been some figuring out to do along the way but we're really enjoying ourselves and each other more now. We're a lot more relaxed in the area of history then we were with SOTW alone. That might seem impossible since Tapestry is not by any means a "light" program but thankfully, I realized the importance of focusing on the lower grammar portion and only venturing into the upper grammar portion for very select books.

Our family is coming together even more, Camille and I are enjoying our read aloud time and she's narrating without much effort. Well, as long as you don't care if what she says is said in complete sentences, lol. The girl can make a run-on sentence long enough to wrap around our house and yard (3 acres) and not take a breath because she's so excited to share her ideas.

I really can't wait until the Weekly Report on Friday (or Saturday), her work with Primary Language Lessons is beautiful and inspiring. I got this silly grin on my face today as I watched her working on her Explode the Code work and she spelled meatballs all by herself without glancing through the pages before to check it. She saw my grin and asked me, "Why are you smiling like that?" Me, "Oh, sweetie, I'm just so proud of you! You spelled meatballs all by yourself and you're really doing your best. That is all Mommy has wanted." She puffed up, put on a silly grin of her own and continued her work.

We're all in a happy, silly grin type of place right now. We read about the Renaissance today and it hit home, "we're" in a time of renewal, a time of looking back to past times to find inspiration and moving forward in a new way. I feel like a bright, shiny new penny. I know that sounds ridiculous but I'm bursting with joy and praise and I could swear I'm glowing.

I'm documenting all this because there will come a time, probably soon, where I will get frustrated or feel overwhelmed more with life than anything and I can come back and reread about our Renaissance.

I do want to say something about reading homeschooling books- I've been rereading a few:

• Educating the WholeHearted Child by Sally & Clay Clarkson
• A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levison
• The Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola
• Home Learning Year by Year by Rebecca Rupp
• 3 R's by Ruth Beechick
• You Can Teach A Child Successfully Grades 4-8 by Ruth Beechick

TAKE NOTES! Flesh out the main ideas of each person, pay close attention when they say, *I did, we did, we decided*. I've read these books before and many others and yet I feel like I'm reading them for the first time. I don't know if it is because my jaded view has been lifted or what.

I've appreciated the comments left by those who read our blog but the well wishes for me to relax...I'm not sure if I'll EVER qualify as a 'relaxed' homeschooler. My idea of relaxing would still be rigid to others' points of views. I've been plagued ever since we started to figure out HOW we were going to homeschool, I've adopted The Well Trained Mind because it was the closest method I could find that was printed out for us with resources to boot. I had ideas of my own but with inexperience (not like I have that much now either!) the ideas aimed too high or required more work than necessary. I'm tempted to delete all that is at this blog and start over.

Really, I am. I don't want others to see my old posts and think, "My goodness, look at all she's doing, why am I not doing that. I must be failing my children because I'm not doing hardly any of that for my own." Believe me, people have SAID this to me. I look at some of my old posts and realize how confused and desperate I was to find our path. Trying anything to bring it all together.

It's Wednesday and we're having a fabulous week. Thankfully, it's week 1 of this quarter (9 weeks long) so we're off to a great start!