Fostering a new renaissance through creativity, authenticity, spirituality, and art
This is Sunrise of Africa School where my daughter Virginia volunteered. (Click here for their website.) It is a Christian Science school outside of Nairobi, in Kenya. There are two different locations with two different uniforms, as you can see in the photographs my daughter took below. This school is growing fast and takes in … Read more
It seems such a short time ago that I dropped my oldest daughter off at college (click here to read that blog entry). It hardly seems possible that her first year is over already. She has worked hard. She learned Ancient Greek, read lots of Plato and Aristotle (etc!), proved every proposition of Euclid, played … Read more
Today’s Homeschool Science Fair was a resounding success. Above, and the top eight photos below are of my daughter’s project. She distilled a huge amount of information! To read more details about the water crisis, read yesterday’s post by clicking here. Below those are photos of some other projects, but no where near all of … Read more
I brought my two homeschooling kids (12 and 15) for a weekend of classes at MIT Splash which is a wonderful program we would highly recommend. It is held at MIT every year on the weekend before Thanksgiving and this is our seventh year coming, as their older sister started coming in sixth grade. It … Read more
Apparently St. John’s College, Annapolis is easier to get in to than to stay in. There is a major exodus of freshman before Thanksgiving; they decide either they can’t cut it or don’t want to. This is also true at other points in the four year process as well, I am told, where either students … Read more
The parents were given the homework of reading Plato’s Apology, which is his account of Socrates’ defense at his trial. (Apologia in Greek means defense, not to say you are sorry…) The parents then, on Saturday morning of Parent’s Weekend had our own seminar on this reading to experience what it is like for our … Read more
It has been our role today to rejoice in our oldest child thriving in a rigorous college setting. She is happy, stimulated, challenged and exhausted. We are proud of her hard work and ongoing diligence to a demanding program. We sat in on her class today – a baffling discussion where no right answers were … Read more
Well, we finally pulled out of the driveway and drove to Annapolis. My daughter burned CD selections on the way for us to listen to, which included everything from tango music to Techno. My favorite choice was Julie Andrews singing “Confidence” from the Sound of Music where she has “confidence in confidence alone” as she … Read more
My Twelve Year Old Brave Writer She’s hovering, constantly balancing dichotomies: Vigorous movement with deep stillness (literally jumping, with profound perception) Beautiful and serene with persistent agitation (like a magnificent landscape with mosquitoes buzzing) Warm and tenderly vulnerable but with defensively cynical walls up Fiercely glad she’s unique and different meanwhile feeling lonely and peerless … Read more
We had forty special people to our house today for my oldest daughter’s homeschool graduation ceremony. After homeschooling for ten years without the typical school milestones, this event was something she wanted – to just once have all her multifaceted community together and to express gratitude for all they have meant to her. It indeed … Read more
There are those in my local homeschooling network here that call me “the book maven.” I earned the title scouting out the best homeschooling books at the cheapest prices, frequenting library book sales and used curriculum sales as well as homeschooling conference trade shows. We now have over 10,000 books in our small house, mostly … Read more
St. John’s College is the school my oldest daughter is interested in attending, that I mentioned in a previous post.
Above is the first of two paintings my 12 year old daughter made in my adult pastel class. I love it and we will frame it for our upstairs hall. It looks particularly good from far away, and this way we’ll see it down the hall every time we come out of the upstairs bathroom. … Read more
I promise I won’t be doing this that often. I’m equally proud of all of my wonderful children. It has taken self control not to ramble on here about my son’s recent robotic successes or how great my oldest daughter was the other day as Lady Macbeth. The difference here is that while those accomplishments … Read more
I am my church’s representative to our local clergy association. We had our meeting yesterday and I wanted to share one of the things I learned there in case it may someday help someone. A woman woke up in the middle of the night and her husband was stone cold dead next to her. He … Read more
My Pastel Class started today. The teacher said if you skip one meal a day for a couple months you could afford to buy some pastels!
My twelve year old daughter is doing something called “Brave Writer” as part of her homeschooling curriculum which includes “Tuesday Teatime.”