Fostering a new renaissance through creativity, authenticity, spirituality, and art
I have a good friend Christine (of The Thinking Mother Blog – click here) who is moving to Texas. I knew it would help her to unload books before her move, and this thought tipped me off of inertia, inspiring me to organize Classical Kids’ first ever Used Curriculum Sale. Above is a photo of … Read more
One of the advantages of parenting (let alone homeschooling!) is you learn so much! Below are words my 16 year old son is learning that I did not know. Do you know any of these? If you know any, you know more than me! obloquy: a verbal condemnation or abuse of a person or thing … Read more
I’m still stunned that my son and daughter’s Brookfield High School team WON the Boston Regional FIRST Robotics tournament yesterday. They came up from behind to this incredible finish, starting in 24th place at the beginning of the quarter finals! (My son is holding the sign above and is on the right in the first … Read more
No April Fool, I was at the State level competition of the National Geography Bee today. Although admittedly I was witnessing top students, it was encouraging to see these kids’ familiarity with our world and their facile command of its facts. We were honored to have our daughter participate at this level! Our daughter missed … Read more
My youngest daughter’s Destination ImagiNation middle school level team came in first place in their division today in Connecticut. They are going to Globals in May! They won last year and went to Globals then as well, but this year the competition was much stiffer, and they didn’t expect to win. Their team, called Vision … Read more
Below please find the response I received from the College Board, obviously an official form letter since it refers to me taking the exam. Regardless, I thought it may be of interest: March 17, 2011 Dear Polly: I am writing to you today in response to your email regarding the essay prompt on the SAT® … Read more
Yesterday I wrote a formal complaint to the College Board, the folks who put out the SAT placement test. The content of my letter has been brewing ever since Saturday, when my son took the SAT test, and the essay question was about reality TV. I referred to my disgust over it in my rather … Read more
I encourage everyone to see this important documentary. I thought it was well done and give it five stars.
Today was our homeschooling group’s annual Creative Arts Fair. As always, there was a wonderful variety of work. My daughter exhibited intricate bead-work – shown above and the first two photos below – along with her felted bag and a stained glass collage of an original poem. Anyway… welcome to this wonderful event, captured (only … Read more
As promised (click here) I wanted to feature an example of vital picture books. Usually I’d promote individual picture books that were remarkable in themselves, which is not particularly the case here. This post is about a remarkable man and his ideas. Picture books about him best communicate his important message into the budding thought … Read more
Each kid is eligible for this bee for four years, from 4th grade until 8th grade. All three of our kids have participated in this all of their eligible years. My older two kids came in second place several times. Today in our 12th and last shot at this, our youngest slam dunked it – … Read more
Here are some insider photos of what it looks like to homeschool science, at least at our house. Our dining room table gets lots of action. Both kids are enjoying online science classes this year complete with labs… That blue stuff smelled awful! And I’m sending out a special THANK YOU to blog reader Debbie … Read more
Last night I hosted the homeschooling High School meeting at my house. There was a good attendance, even though only half of my huge RSVP list actually showed. This was probably good, as my living room is small. We had almost every stripe of homeschooler present, except possibly the strict one-box-curriculum-provider kind, or complete unschooling … Read more
Yea! So glad this is done, albeit belatedly. Every year I swap out last year’s books for the next year’s homeschooling books. I usually do it in the summer but this year was too busy to get anything but the first two months planned. So I didn’t get to the rest until yesterday. In the … Read more
I’m blown away by something I read in today’s New York Time (read it here) that states picture books are going out of vogue because parents are encouraging kids to move on to chapter books. How wrong! I have to give a pitch for picture books, because they are very important. They should be fully … Read more
When I was in Farmington, Maine, my daughter and I visited a wonderful place. It was called Everyone’s Resource Depot
We’ve just finished a unit study on Monet. My youngest daughter and I read and studied a large variety of books, from adults ones to very easy children’s ones. I’ve included photos here of the ones we liked best. We also watched library videos about Monet, and tried emulating his painting style. My daughter used … Read more