The first week

We officially started our homeschool journey this week on 09/09/09 at 9:09 a.m. and after 3 full days the reports are in that all is well.

I'm too tired to write beautiful prose and share with you our journey so instead, in bullet form, our week...

Wednesday: we met at Austin Amp's warehouse with our friends Martine and Felix and Kain, another new to homeschooling lad, who will be schooling with us. We did a circle of introductions and a round of what we hoped for in the coming weeks and months of homeschooling. From there we did some writing about self from some prompts I had put together - all under the main theme of Who Am I? The prompts were things like what are my roles, what do I like to do, what am I really good at, what would I like to learn, etc. We interspersed discussion with writing until Frederico ambled into the warehouse and hung upside down on the inversion chair. Of course the kids were totally intrigued by this so Frederico, a filmmaker who uses the Amp space, gave the kids an intro to the whys and ways of inversion and gave us a all a try.

We ate lunch at the round table and then took an urban hike gathering seeds along the way and even stopping to talk to a neighbor about his very abundant OLIVE tree. We walked to the creek and threw a few rocks, sailed a few sticks and then wandered back to the warehouse for a discussion on the drought. While we talked we did a collaborative drawing which we passed around the table. We'll do one each time we have a group discussion with a shared theme.

Okay, back to bullets, I forgot how tired I was!

Thursday: golf in the a.m. with Eric as the adult leader. A small round at Butler Park's public 9 hole course. Then to Martine and Eric's for lunch, an intro to the kitchen. Then back to Amp for some math work with Martine.

Friday: Green Gate Farms! For some weeding and planting of potatoes in the first cool, wet day. Truly the first non scorching day in months so a perfect day to head to the farm. Martine drove the kiddos out to Erin and Skip's urban farm and Erin led them in their chores. Martine thinks she's going to be sore tomorrow!!!

So truly all is well and all are enjoying their time together. Next week we'll have one more girl joining us and a couple others perhaps popping in here and there.

It really is feeling just how I imagined it could feel!