Thursday, August 14, 2008

Looking Back

As August marches on registrations and planning for the upcoming school year has been in the forefront of my week.  It's going to be a year of a lot of changes for us.  El Professor's position in the public schools is changing which means we probably won't see him at lunch everyday this year.  We have thrown our hat in the ring with a new, private home school program called 'Classical Conversations' which will provide most of our core curriculum.  We have always had a very ecclectic curriculum, so high accountability and a core curriculum will be new to us.  I will be a tutoring one of the classes which will be interesting!  Our wonderful, beloved 'beginning' piano teacher of four years has graduated the kids to other referrals make room for new beginners.  I am going to scale back on our 'outside obligations' to allow more time at home for margins, home tasks, tutor planning and creativity.  How it will all play out in a weekly schedule remains to be seen. 

This last year ended up being somewhat crazy as we maintained a busy schedule of 'outside' activities.  Still, it was a good year with a lot of good memories.  Before launching into the next school year I wanted to do a few posts on 'the year in review'. 

We kicked off the school year with an early September trip to Orcas Island with our mostly home schooled Boy Scout Troop.  El Professor was the coordinator/organizer/leader of the trip.  It was a fabulous time of camping, kayaking, ferry boat riding, hiking, shell hunting, tide pooling and shopping.  It was a last hurrah for us, as Thirteen opted to end his Boy Scout career on a good note.  (That is a BUSY bunch)

A friend organized a Friday morning hike group. 

One fond marker of fall for me involves numerous trips to a local orchard.  I used to take the school kids there for a field trip when I taught in the public schools.  Now it's a home school event for us....usually involving several trips as the fall progresses.  They have many varieties of apple that ripen from August to the end of October, and an authentic farm stand where most of the produce is their's and isn't trucked in from elsewhere. 
Walking the orchard rows.


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