Graduation

A week or so ago I (Daniel) attended our home school group's year-end graduation ceremony. Teachers and students alike worked very hard to construct a wonderful ceremony for family members and other guests. I am not involved very heavily with the girl's education and on this night I learned much about the nature of the community they are a part of. I was overwhelmed first by the teachers themselves. Here they are below for a group picture (there's Jennifer third from right):I'm prone to wonder aloud even when unsought and unrequested: These teachers, mostly women as you can see, work by affection alone outside of monetary relations. Certainly I could have deduced the same from the very idea of a co-op school group but sometimes being in the presence of such a truth informs in ways mere intellectual deduction won't. I don't say monetary relations can't exist along side affection but it is a pleasure to watch the product of affection alone. These teachers commit days, evenings, weekends, resources, and much love to their students without any reparation save the life of the community itself. I was awed by the cheer, grace, compassion, leadership, and innovation on display this evening.

These folks operate autonomously, independently, without subservience to corporate, monetary, or government influence or help. Their actions are courageous. Their satisfaction in success all theirs. A note of thanks to the church, another voluntary, autonomous, and self-supporting institution, for sharing their space with this school group.

Jennifer works tirelessly both at home and with the home school group to educate our daughters and the other students. She and I find ourselves a pair of teachers and I could not be prouder. She is mother, wife, manager of home-life, and seamlessly, gracefully, and yet with full distinction and commitment, teacher. Below she narrates a shadow puppet performance on graduation night.


Honored to be her husband I was humbled to be their dad. You may have seen the video. It's probably equivalent to the difference between seeing pictures of Appalachia and walking its hills. I melted as they played. I note the courage, this branch of the Kruideniers is rather shy, the discipline, the excellence of tone and heart. I relish the sheer unspeakable and incommunicable joy of being a part of these two girls' lives. They absolutely stun my tongue. Words crumble in insignificance. Proud, yes but more. Humbled, yes but more. Imagine rain drops conscious and feeling. Imagine also as they cascaded through the sky and united collecting into pools and rivulets tracing minute geography their feeling grew. The union of drops forming a union of feeling. From rivulets to streams and mighty rivers. Now imagine all that feeling dashing over a cliff and falling freely into a great deep abyss. That's how I felt whilst they played.

A picture of the shadow puppet performance. Ellen acted the part of a crane in an ancient Indian tale.

The evening was full of teachers introducing students, and students reporting what they enjoyed in their learning this year. Some other students also gave musical performances and the high school age students performed a play written by one of the members of their screen-writing group. All had a wonderful time. The girls proudly accepted their diploma for completing their year. They as well as I left educated.

Kids in Print

The Richland County Public Library has a program where they invite children ages 6-18 to submit black and white drawings, one page writings, and photographs for their publication called Kids in Print. This year 440 pieces were submitted and Ellen's black and white drawing titled Spring was selected for publishing! They sent us a letter of recognition and an invitation for a reception to honor the artists that was held on Saturday.

The picture above was taken during the pre-reception slide show. During the reception a local author gave a speech encouraging the writers and artists in the crowd. At the end they awarded all the kids with free copies of the Kids in Print book.

The publication sells for $5 and is on loan at the library all year. The art will be on display in the library all month (see picture below). Afterwards they served cupcakes and punch. It was a special day for Ellen and we were all so proud to be there to celebrate her.

Arianna's First Art Show

The USC art department offers art classes every semester called the Young Artists Workshop. Arianna was VERY excited about FINALLY being old enough to participate this Spring. Ellen has done it twice already and Arianna has patiently waited until she turned 6 to sign up. The class is a hour and a half every Friday for 6 weeks. They do projects with acrylics, watercolor, clay, etc. There is a reception after the last class where the teachers display the works and serve refreshments. It is a nice event since we are able to get to see everyone's work in such a professional way. The kids are always so proud.
These are some of the clay pieces. Arianna's is the yellow horse head.
Here's Arianna's self portrait that was done to look like a batik.
We took them out to dinner to celebrate Arianna's first art reception.
This is Ellen's lizard.
Sorry to the grandparents for not giving notice of this event. It really snuck up on me this year and I was not expecting the weeks to go by so fast!

Our Homeschool

I know some of you read this and have no idea what we actually do for our homeschool. Some of you are homeschooling also and know what I'm talking about. Here is what we are doing this year in SC.

In order to be legal in the state of SC we are a member of a Homeschool Association called REACH. (It is kind of complicated but there are 3 different options to choose from to be legal. Choosing an association is just one option. And, there are many associations to choose from! I will not go in to any more detail about that here. If you are interested check here for more details on SC law.) Within that association we have to attend 2 events (field trips) and host 1 event to stay current and active with the group. This group is also a great way to connect with other families and encourage and offer information and support throughout the year. We have a website and lots of different local yahoo groups to stay connected online. We also have playgroups and MNOs (mom's night out). We are required by law to cover all the normal subjects (language arts, science, social studies, etc.) but there is no set curriculum we have to use. In fact a curriculum is not even required. I just have to sign a sheet of paper that says I have taught those courses and am keeping some kind of journal or portfolio for our work. Testing is not required. I don't have to register or file paperwork with the school district. My association does all that for me.

This year we are participating in a homeschool coop. We will meet once a week for classes in science, world cultures, writing, critical thinking, and recorder. Parents will rotate teaching subjects. We'll use the Real Science 4 kids curriculum I've listed below and each parent gets to choose any culture to teach. The other 3 classes are taught by the same teacher/parent every week. There are 4 different age groups involved: preschool, 1st-3rd, 4th-8th, and highschool. The preschool and highschool are doing different classes during the time period. This coop has been around for 14 years (if I remember correctly) and the girls are very excited about starting next week.

As most of you know, homeschooling has become more popular in recent years. As a result there is so much information and such a huge amount of resources and curricula that it is hard to choose which ones to use. I have done a lot of research and found some that I really like and fit our family best. In general we are able to get all our basic school work done within 2 hours in the mornings and the rest of the days are used for extra curricular activities including dance, nature exploration, music, art, extra reading, library visits, museum classes and visits, shopping, etc. The girls have a lot of free play time as well--hours a day. I believe this kind of creative play is very important in their development. There is no TV or video games involved--just kids, some toys, craft supplies, and lots of imagination!

Here is the list of the curriculum we use and links for more info.
Math U See Alpha and Beta
First Language Lessons
Explode the code books 1 1/2 and 4 1/2
The Story of the World Book one:Ancient Times
Lilliput Station Copywork
Real Science for Kids

I took these pictures the same day we made the videos. Then we took a few silly pics to show that not all school time is serious. We take breaks and dig into special subjects whenever necessary or when the girls show particular interests. Sometimes we take breaks just because we can! The girls are cruising through the goals we have set for this year. It is amazing how much they can absorb at such a young age and in such little time. No standing in line or waiting for others to catch up to something they understand quickly. Since we don't take a break over summer we don't even need to review. We just keep moving forward.

Anyway, here the girls are sitting at their table doing copywork.


Coloring is very important too:)


A little bit of silliness from mom too. Messy playroom in the background and all!
This is a picture of the art project which we did last week. It was perfect since we learned about paper mache AND had a gift our good friend could use at her birthday party! We'll be making one for Ellen's 7th birthday next weekend too. I got the directions for making this here at Mother Earth News online magazine.

Our Homeschool

I know some of you read this and have no idea what we actually do for our homeschool. So, I would like to explain some things in this post.

In order to be legal in the state of SC we are a member of a Homeschool Association called REACH. (It is kind of complicated but there are 3 different options to choose from to be legal. Choosing an association is just one option. And, there are many associations to choose from! I will not go in to any more detail about that here. If you are interested check here for more details on SC law.) Within that association we have to attend 2 events (field trips) and host 1 event to stay current and active with the group. This group is also a great way to connect with other families and encourage and offer information and support throughout the year. We have a website and lots of different local yahoo groups to stay connected online. We also have playgroups and MNOs (mom's night out). We are required by law to cover all the normal subjects (language arts, science, social studies, etc.) but there is no set curriculum we have to use. In fact a curriculum is not even required. I just have to sign a sheet of paper that says I have taught those courses and am keeping some kind of journal or portfolio for our work. Testing is not required. I don't have to register or file paperwork with the school district. My association does all that for me.

This year we are participating in a homeschool coop. We will meet once a week for classes in science, world cultures, writing, critical thinking, and recorder. Parents will rotate teaching subjects. We'll use the Real Science 4 kids curriculum I've listed below and each parent gets to choose any culture to teach. The other 3 classes are taught by the same teacher/parent every week. There are 4 different age groups involved: preschool, 1st-3rd, 4th-8th, and highschool. The preschool and highschool are doing different classes during the time period. This coop has been around for 14 years (if I remember correctly) and the girls are very excited about starting next week.

As most of you know, homeschooling has become more popular in recent years. As a result there is so much information and such a huge amount of resources and curricula that it is hard to choose which ones to use. I have done a lot of research and found some that I really like and fit our family best. In general we are able to get all our basic school work done within 2 hours in the mornings and the rest of the days are used for extra curricular activities including dance, nature exploration, music, art, extra reading, library visits, museum classes and visits, shopping, etc. The girls have a lot of free play time as well--hours a day. I believe this kind of creative play is very important in their development. There is no TV or video games involved--just kids, some toys, craft supplies, and lots of imagination!

Here is the list of the curriculum we use and links for more info.
Math U See Alpha and Beta
First Language Lessons
Explode the code books 1 1/2 and 4 1/2
The Story of the World Book one:Ancient Times
Lilliput Station Copywork
Real Science for Kids

I took these pictures the same day we made the videos. Then we took a few silly pics to show that not all school time is serious. We take breaks and dig into special subjects whenever necessary or when the girls show particular interests. Sometimes we take breaks just because we can! The girls are cruising through the goals we have set for this year. It is amazing how much they can absorb at such a young age and in such little time. No standing in line or waiting for others to catch up to something they understand quickly. Since we don't take a break over summer we don't even need to review. We just keep moving forward.

Anyway, here the girls are sitting at their table doing copywork.


Coloring is very important too:)


A little bit of silliness from mom too. Messy playroom in the background and all!
This is a picture of the art project which we did last week. It was perfect since we learned about paper mache AND had a gift our good friend could use at her birthday party! We'll be making one for Ellen's 7th birthday next weekend too. I got the directions for making this here at Mother Earth News online magazine.