2026-2027 plans

 Here are my plans for next year. This will fill in as I think it through.

All kids will be using Teaching Textbooks math (both digital and paper) and Peter Enns's Telling God's Story for their grade levels. They'll (almost) all do Latin but I haven't decided what curriculum yet. And most in weekly full day drama/dance/art through our parks dept as always.

Gorilla, GRADUATED woooo! Will be taking a gap year and planning next steps, continuing her table at local events for commissioned art, and volunteering at the parks dept.

Dormouse, 8th grade. Auditory processing disorder, very dreamy with a rich interior life. Think Leo the Late Bloomer. 

• Memoria Press Simply Classical 7&8
• Saxon Grammar
• Next book of HWT cursive
• Science TBD
• Other literature TBD

Octopus, 6th grade. Autistic, droll, loves photography, drawing, and painting.

• Bookshark Reading with History B with Language Arts 2

Parrot, 4th grade. Hotheaded and passionate, learning to temper justice with mercy. Likes making things.

• Memoria Press 3A
• Saxon Grammar 
• Science TBD (with Monkey)

Monkey, 2nd grade. Very silly fellow, advanced in math, loves playing board and card games.

• Memoria Press 2
• Science TBD (with Parrot)

swimming lessons new time!

 Late last night the swim school texted and said they have an open 10-11AM Tuesday-Thursday, did we want that? Oh yes please, I said. So now I'm scrambling to get the kids' stuff together but that's a nice problem to have.

summer schedule

Now that they finished the academic year I'll switch to a summer mode. They need to keep going in math, to keep it from sliding out of their brains. I think 3 days a week will be good for that, MWF. I'll also be reading aloud because I do that anyway. We do a 4 day academic, 1 day arts enrichment week in the school year so I don't have much time for field trips, oddly. I'm going to make up for that this summer too. We have a cool science museum, a contemporary art museum, and a nice zoo (zoos make me sad, but I guess it's not about me, eh?) as well as at least a dozen specialty museums ranging from pigeons to pinball. Dormouse will be at sleepaway camp for a week (thank you to our church for sponsoring her!) and she has dance camp for a few days the end of summer.

I will also be gearing up for next year and finalizing what's what. Memoria Press has a free shipping on one order through the end of May going on, so I'll get on that. 

swimming lessons begin

 Today was the first swimming lesson for Dormouse, Parrot and Monkey. It went well. Going with Marcus Aurelius' advice to get the best tutors you can afford to teach your kids, I have them in 1-1 lessons instead of a class. I think getting 20 minutes directly is better than 5 minutes in a horde. It does cost more but not outrageously more, and it will be so much faster.

The trouble is it's from 9-10AM on Sunday. Church starts at 10:30, and it's a 30 minute drive from swim to church. I guess we'll just be a little late to church for the next month or two. I asked to be put in any other timeslot that wasn't Sunday mornings as soon as we could.

2025-2026 review

 Finished a year! 

5 students: 12th grade, 7th grade, 5th grade, 3rd grade, 1st grade.

• 30 days theater/art/dance class
• 4 field trips: 2 museums, 1 fair, 1 farm
• 2 days standardized testing
• 144 days academics: math, literature, grammar, science, theology, history, penmanship.

180 days total!