The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;


Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,


And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day! 
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.


I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

We read this poem in our Sonlight Core 100 study last week and had such a great discussion about it. First we discussed what was actually going on in the poem. A man, going for a walk in the woods, comes to a fork in the road and picks one of the two paths. Then we talked about the deeper meaning of the poem, how it's about life and decisions we are faced with and how the ones we make impacts the rest of our lives sometimes. Then we discussed what some of those decisions were in our lives, as a family, as individuals. It was really powerful. This has always been one of my favorite poems, and Frost one of my favorite poets.

One of the joys of homeschooling: great discussions!

Todd Wilson - Family Man Ministries

On Thursday I headed over to Hillcrest Baptist Church to hear Todd Wilson of Family Man Ministries speak. I was vaguely familiar with him, having seen him at several conventions this past year. However, since I work as a Sonlight Curriculum Consultant at homeschooling conventions, I don't often have the opportunity of attending workhops and seminars. So although I had heard he is an entertaining speaker, I had never had the pleasure of listening to him.

My friend, Natalie Davis, and her husband and daughter and I all rode together. I did something out of character  and did not take along a notebook in order to take notes. I just went to listen. And laugh. And be encouraged. Natalie, however, did take notes and she wrote an excellent summary on her blog. I encourage you to read it if you need to be encouraged in your homeschool adventure.

Do you hear the fog horn? Don't get lost in the Homeschool Fog!

Costume Party

Our school year is in full swing. We are busy with reading, classes and co-ops (2 this year!)


On Wednesday, Annie asked me if we could have a costume party. After our co-op. On Friday. Friday?! Two days to plan? So what is a mommy to say to such a request but, "Yes, of course!" I had stated the aforementioned response without having checked the calendar. I had conveniently forgotten that I was co-hosting a Pampared Chef party the night before, teaching two classes at co-op (for which I had not yet prepared nor graded papers), then attending a bridal shower in the evening. Plus we had plans to have friends over for a cookout on Sunday evening. So it wasn't like we had nothing going on....


However, the kids promised that they'd help me (and silly me believed them), promised that it would be low key so I posted a quick invite on our co-op's forum. We had about 6 sign ups by Friday morning so I wasn't too worried. Six is a pretty manageable group. But then at co-op that day I had several moms ask if it was too late to sign up for the party and believing in the adage "the more the merrier" I cheerfully agreed.


We arrived at home (with 2 extra kids in tow), ate a quick lunch and then quickly put people the work. The extra kids got to participate in the "preparations" (read: vacuuming, sweeping, putting stuff away).

In the end 11 kids showed up. They played on the trampoline.

Made and devoured caramel apples (all except one child who had braces. She made one and will bring it home to her braces-less sisters). Two girls had never eaten them before!!! Gasp!!

Drank two gallons of pink lemonade and then jumped on the trampoline some more.

Some of the girls had fun with the curling iron.

All in all it was a fun afternoon of food and friends! 

Home Educating Family Publishing

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Happy Labor Day!

We had big plans for our Labor Day weekend but Tommy and I both got the flu earlier in the week (which messed up our anniversary plans!) so the plans were scrapped and we stayed home. The good thing was Michael got to work around the house a lot, cutting the grass, pulling weeds and getting the boat moved out of the driveway and back into the backyard. I got to rest, rest, rest, watch a little Food Network, catch up on email, work on my to do list, plan my first day of class next Friday, and read a book just for fun! I also took 3 baths (which I hardly EVER do), watched a documentary on the Gates of Israel, and two (not very good) movies, played Banangrams, Uno and Sleeping Queens with various people. We did go to the beach for a few hours on Sunday (skipped church so as to not spread germs) where we just relaxed.

So although it's not what we had planned, it was still nice to spend time together, rest, relax AND be productive! Hope YOU had a happy Labor Day!

Nature Study

This year, rather than doing a Sonlight Science, Annie is going to pursue nature study, recording her findings in a nature journal, doing a little research to find out more about our findings and then publishing her findings in her own nature blog.

We started last week by raising some monarch caterpillars. Today we went to a local park to see what we could find. Here are a few things:

A little tiny bug that looked like a leaf. We will try to identify it tomorrow. Annie sketched this in her notebook and tomorrow will also color it.

Millipede

White fuzzy looking fungus

Teeny frog. You can spot him on the right side of the light colored piece of bark by the green leaves.

Another fungus. Some type of mushroom?

First day of school!

Today was our official first day of school. We have a tradition of photographing the first day. Usually we gather all the kids together for a group shot. Since Tommy is now attending school and they started last week, he got his own picture (but won't let me post it). So I went ahead and shot the other two individual pictures as well. Here they are:

After spending much time designing schedules and courses of studiy we finally put it to the test! The hardest part was getting up at 8:00. Although one of the beauties of homeschooling is getting to sleep in, sleeping til 10:00 is not going to happen this year! I was tired of still schooling at 5:00 because we got started so late. So this year that's going to change. The other change is having an order to our day. In the past they could work on whatever they wanted to work on first but I found tthat we would "forget" to do things that way or "save" our least favorite things to the end of the day.

So the plan this year (so far, I'm sure we'll tweak it as the week progresses) is as follows [for Timothy. Annie's schedule is somewhat different]:

8:30 Bible, CC Review

9:00 Math

10:00 Writing/Grammar

11:00 History

11:30 Science

12:00 Lunch

1:00 Piano

1:30 Reading

2:00 Electives (Logic, Music & Art appreciation)

I made an excel spreadsheet for each child and it's in a page protector so they can check things off or at least refer to it. I'm trying to have them rely less on me and more on their own ability to self govern. Let's see how it goes!