Today is the last day home before taking off tomorrow.  There will be no structured school today… OK, there was little to none yesterday too- so, sue me…. I am too busy cruising the blogosphere putting together my little bitty community newspaper before we leave.  In theory this little rag should actually write itself, in that, my friends, neighbors and community compatriots are clamouring to submit their respective bits and pieces of individual community perspective… but, um… no. I will write it.  From largely my own individual community perspective.  In truth, I have a few very generous contributors, for whom I have grown to owe my life to depend on, providing a voice other than my own.

But, back to my point about no school today…. newspaper day for mom means:  don’t ask me for food… don’t ask me for drinks… don’t ask me to turn on the t.v… and certainly don’t ask me to log in to Webkinz because you’ve lost your password.  Please, just leave me be.  I am squeezing out creativity in the form of community news… and believe me that takes some creativity!  And so I sit… blogging.  Ignoring children and their needs… blogging.

Rather than neglecting my offspring, consider it a stirring of the creative juices.  And you can also consider it a valuable exercise in independence for my children….

Today is the last day of July.  It has been a couple of days short of a month since my last post.

That could simply be all, given that we haven’t yet even cracked a module or math workbook since our last meeting with Boss-lady.  But, y’know.  To this, I say, so what?  It is summertime after all.

And it’s been pretty lazy, hazy, dazy.  But now it’s time to strap on… the bootstraps….?!?  Ooops!  I might familiarize myself a little better with the idioms.  I mean, it’s time to pull up those old bootstraps and get a little learnin’ goin’ on.  We’ve kind of allowed little minds, in the true spirit of lazy, hazy, dazy summer days, turn a little mushy.  Oh, we’ve enjoyed the sun and fun… the boat and camping have been a blast.  But now, thanks to the downright flakiness of Dear Old Mother Nature and the inconsistency of summer in these here Canadian Rockies, the dog days of summer have turned into the early days of fall (yes, it’s only July and we are reaching tremendous highs of only bloody well 20C- almost 70F to my American counterparts!), and so what better time to take a little more structured approach?

We also have a good deal of travelling scheduled for the next several months- each location presenting us with innumerable opportunities for learning.

So, dear chickadees.  School is back in session.  Did somebody say, lunch?

Oh Hell. I dunno. It just kind of characterizes our homeschool experience so far….
I really do let my own highschool baggage get in the way sometimes.

Our meeting with our homeschool boss-lady last Friday went, in fact, completely without incident, without frustration and without namecalling judgement. Boss-lady (for whom she shall from this point forward be affectionately named) was very cool about what we’ve been doing- reading, gardening, camping, triathloning- and pretty non-chalant about what we haven’t been doing- modules.

We left the meeting with a whole new set of materials, which included two more modules, despite sheepishly admitting we’d not yet actually completed the last. While I’ve not officially announced it at any of these assessment meetings, I do think (given her extensive experience overseeing homeschoolers) she’s caught on to the fact that we’re of something along the unschooling variety of homeschoolers.

I’m happy she’s so perceptive. It saves me actually stating it out loud. Because stating it out loud, whether to Boss-lady, my family, my friends or my neighbors, then means I have to rationalize, justify, just plain old, explain, what the hell that means and therefore just what the hell we’re actually doing. Not that I couldn’t if you gave me a few days enough time, it’s just something I’m still playing with and trying to make work.

In the meantime, as we play with unschooling and flirt with our ‘modules’, oh… and diddle a little with old Charlotte- Mason, that is- we are sitting happily on the fence… finding our way. A way that works best. And I think, after these past six months, we’re getting there.

I just don’t wanna have to try to explain it to anybody!