Missy
Missy's homeschooling journey began when she realized that the walls surrounding her daughter's classroom were too narrow; there was no room for exploration, no space for stretching. Now, she and her three children stretch and explore the world together. My blog: caffeinatedjive.
A long, long time ago, I was a teacher. I didn’t quite believe in the confines of public education, but I thought I could work within those confines, elbowing a little extra space, a little wiggle room. Instead, the perimeters narrowed even more and I learned that administrators got really grumpy when you tried to give your students a room to breathe....
"You are lucky," the woman repeated, "you are a part of history today, little girl!"...
And now, "someday" is next week. I'm going to be 40 next week. By the time you read this, I will already be 40, and suddenly "someday" isn't so funny....
Let's sit and chat and share ideas. Have a cup of coffee. (Or, tea. I guess. It's not quite the same, though.) Have a cookie. No calories. Really. Because it's not real. It's a cyber cookie....
I was one of those parents.
The ones that look at your grubby little kid and make assumptions. The ones that look at his snotty nose and see, well, snot…and germs. The ones that wonder how you could possibly let him wear the super-hero underoos t-shirt with those dinosaur pajama bottoms into the store. In public! With no shoes! His socks don’t match and there’s a hole in the left one!...
Our five-year-old is loud. I think I’ve said that before. His conversational tone is LOUD, and his screaming and shrieking is LOUDER, and sometimes, on days that the onslaught has been particularly overwhelming, we feel like we’re going slowly insane, while the noise presses down on every nerve in our bodies....
I generally hate labels. Too often they’re used to put people in nice neat boxes, and too often they’re imposed by people who have only a snapshot view of a person....
Yesterday, my 5-year-old son and I were on our way to Costco. The music—at his request—was blasting because it was “his” song. Or, more accurately “his” and my older son’s song, the one that must play whenever we are in the van for longer than 10 minutes....
Langston, my 7-year-old, was fiddling around with something....
The other day, my 7-year-old son and I were leaving Starbucks. The local high schools had just let out and the tables outside were filling up with the same crowd that shows up every day: the non-conformists....
We just bought a new van....
I've missed two deadlines with this piece. Two. Usually I'm a little late because I'm tweaking things at the last minute. But to miss it completely? I've never done that....
Long ago, in that other galaxy far away, when I was teaching children with special needs, I was twisted....
Tag! I’m it....I’ve been tagged twice in the last month. I haven’t responded yet because: 1. my personal blog has been sadly neglected in recent weeks, 2. I’m a blog-weinie and have no one else to tag, and 3. the first question paralyzes me. “One Homeschooling Book You Have Enjoyed.”...
You know that feeling you get after a good stretch? What about after that last exam? The first day of your vacation, when you wake up to nothing but a good book, an empty beach and a clear sky? ....
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
It’s raining here. Again. It generally doesn’t rain for three days straight in Virginia. Three days with an afternoon storm or summer shower, sure. But a continuous torrential rainfall? Nope. I don’t think we’re mentally equipped for it....
Several months ago, my older children saw a bumper sticker on another homeschooler’s car: "Treat your children the way you want to be treated." ....
People frequently ask me about my accent. They can’t quite place it and that bothers them. (What is this need to put people in neat little boxes anyway?) I didn’t understand their confusion until I was a senior in college and someone took the time to break down the major influences on my speech....
I keep reading these very disturbing opinion pieces, these misinformed diatribes loudly asserting with all confidence why I and the apparent vast majority of all homeschoolers have chosen to step away from the public school system....
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