Posted in On Our Journey

In fact, homeschooling has been a large part of why I haven't blogged in months! 

As most people know, homeschooling parents tend to be an involved lot.  They don't just drop their children off at an activity and come back in an hour or at the end of class. 

They tend to stick around.  They ask questions.  They participate.  They observe.

Which also means, in my case, they volunteer.

My daughter has been in dance classes for several years now.  This past holiday season (I'm referring to Christmas, though we're now past Easter I know!), her studio produced The Nutcracker - a biannual event.

I produced a LOT of costumes.    Not just hems and some alterations, but complete pieces in some cases.

Oh, and for the record, one does use algebra after high school.  Especially if one is constructing a hoop skirt with a 25 foot circumference, intended to hide nine adolescents beneath its frame.   Fortunately, I only made the skirt foundation; the costume was a rental.

However, being a homeschooling family, that meant my daughter was pressed into service - I mean, asked to help with the costumes as well.

She learned to thread elastic through waistbands.  She pinned pattern pieces in place.  She painted bands on straw hats to match costume trim.  She served as as an unflinching model for costume parts and pieces. 

And, of course, she learned a few dance steps and a lot of choreography as well.

After surviving the aptly-named Nutcracker, we entered the Christmas holidays.  Then flu season.  After that, we seemed to hunker down and really focus on learning and having some fun together. 

We probably didn't advance too far in our history studies.  I seem to remember being perpetually stuck at the fall of Rome for a while there.  Science consisted mostly of experiments with just how far one can bend various forms of pipe to construct a 25 foot circle.  Math was mostly about estimating - fabric usage, trim length, time.  Art was the obvious.  Somewhere in all the rehearsal schedule chaos, dd did manage to read a six book series called Warriors, a fantasy series about cats and started writing a book herself.

I think our first foray into unschooling was successful! 

After the this experience, we headed into convention season.  But, that's a story for a seperate post.