My Homeschool Journal – October - A Quiet Simple Life with Sallie Borrink

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In My Life This Month

I find myself astonished that it’s already mid-October. David remarked at breakfast this morning that this entire year has just felt off. It feels like we’ve struggled to hit that sweet spot of flow that makes life move a bit more effortlessly in terms of focus and rhythm. It hasn’t been a bad year. It’s just been a weird year.

I have nothing particularly exciting going on this month. We do truly live a very simple and quiet life most of the time. Sometimes I feel like I should have more to share here, but I don’t. I homeschool. I work. I take care of my family. I take care of my home. That’s pretty much my life. Lather, rinse, repeat each month. And I’m happy with my life and thankful for it.

As you have already seen, I’ve changed the WordPress theme of my site. I also moved my other website back here. Because we changed the theme and combined two sites, David and I have had to resize all of post images on this site. So far we’ve changed around 500+ with at least another 100 to go.

Thanks for your patience as we get these all changed over and some still look wonky in the search results or related posts. It’s been so much work. It’s worth it, but I’m really ready to be done with website post images!

In Our Homeschool This Month

We’ve settled into our homeschooling and have found a good little rhythm. We’re doing Michigan state history this year. Normally it is done in fourth grade, but I was hoping for Caroline to take it at co-op so I held off to try to work that in. It never worked out so we’re doing it this year. That’s been fun. I’m hoping we can take her to Lansing in the spring to see the capitol and some of the other museums.

We’ve traveled very little with her. Very little. She’s just now at the point in the past year when she is asking to go places instead of enduring it. She’s never liked being in the car (motion sickness) so there is lots and lots around the state to show her. (Part of it is also my being able to eat while we are away from home. That’s another obstacle we need to overcome since I cannot safely eat out anywhere.)

We’re also working to keep one of Caroline’s goldfish alive. It seems to have developed swim bladder disease so we’ve been researching that online and at the pet store.

Something that is amazing to watch is how Caroline is such a problem solver. She knows how to research online, sort through information, etc. I feel like this is one area where David and I model really well as her parents. We talk often about being a problem-solving family and I want Caroline to take that skill and attitude with her into life. We don’t do it perfectly, but I can see how she has embraced a bit of that can-do attitude and that makes me happy.

Places We’re Going and People We’re Seeing

Caroline picked out a Halloween costume this weekend and she’s looking forward to trick or treating. (If you’ve never read our story about why we changed our minds regarding participating in Halloween, it’s here: Why We Changed Our Mind About Halloween.)

My Favorite Thing This Month

My favorite thing this month is the fact that I re-opened my Facebook group. We had a lovely little group going last summer and I opted to shut it down to move to a forum hosted here on my site. Trying to start a forum in today’s social media environment is fighting an uphill battle. I decided to reopen the Facebook group. If you’d like to join us, you can find us here. (Now closed. I left Facebook.)

A Link to Share

I’ve been starting to think about high school homeschooling as we head into the middle school years. Partially because math is such a big issue for us for a number of reasons and I’m not sure how it is all going to pan out. Partially because I simply don’t see Caroline taking the traditional college prep academic track in middle school and high school and so I need to think outside the box.

I’ve been reading and listening to Lee Binz and I want to share a link. In fact, I’ll probably share lots of her links in the days and months and years ahead. Her information is so practical and she makes you feel like YOU CAN DO THIS HIGH SCHOOL THING! I don’t know about you, but I need that. A lot.

Total Transcript Solution is one of the courses she offers. If you are at all feeling overwhelmed by the entire high school class and transcript thing, this might be just the thing you need.