Post#1 First Day of 10th Grade

It's the first day of 10th grade, Sophmore year. Wow. Wow and Wow...my 7th year of educating Evie at home. What a beautiful journey it has been. When we start a new "school year" we re-group for the year, we talk about what is important to us educationaly and beyond. What we want to learn, study, grow in. What is important for Evie and her dreams. That's how I educate her, I make sure she does her math and grammer and everything else is a facilitation of what's important to her, what will help her succeed in what SHE wants to do with her life.

It has been a journey, lots of twist and bends, some straight paths, some difficult ones. Sometimes like life it has been just as we intended and sometimes you just have to throw out your entire plan and start over. Learning when to hold on and when to let go, well that's a great life lesson. I set out to document her highschool years completely, but life had a different course in mind. Last year was full of change, loss, growth, beauty, and sadness. It was intense and the intensity of so many things prevented me from keeping up with my blog. Oh well, we still learned a lot, but there was a feeling of "wow we survived" on the last day of school. We hope to not feel quite that way at the end of this school year! I say "school year" but Evie's education is year round, 24hours a day, 7 days a week, it's called life. 

I have no idea what life will bring this school year, of course I don't, I am many things but seeing into the future is even beyond my many abilities. :) For those who like to know what "subjects" we are stuyding, well I know we hope to keep learning, keep loving the idea of learning something new. We will continue her advanced math-she's 2 grades ahead, we will read lots of great literature-she's a writer and advanced placment literature is important for her success, we will continue to use Stanford Universitie's free online history program. She will attend Ashbury College one semester for a Biology lab. Evie started taking free college courses last year through Coursera, I don't choose them, she does and she has two coming up, a writing course and a health course. I am so grateful for my self motivated child. I guess I get some credit for that as I have always encouraged self study and the love of learning. Other fun things, she will shoot archery on a team-I think this is year 4or5 of that, continue to study art and work with many different mediums, continued growth in her yoga and hoop practices, we are both going to learn how to play with fire, and then there is NANOwrimo in November. Also this will be her first year schooling with a job! We will attend homeschool co-op once a week, and then there is the building of our house. Before you ask, yes homebuilding is a class on her transcript! Sometimes you don't fit it all in, sometimes something slides, of course it does, and it should, because if not then your not really learning, and your not living in the moment. We try to live for today's joy. 

10th grade, I'm excited for it. I am excited to see how we both grow and change this year. The only thing I do know is this, I know we will shine. 

First day of school ice dream celebration! Well, because the coffee shops were all closed :)