Teach by Dennis Dinoia, also known as Mr D, from Mr D Math which gave me ideas on how to teach my kids to become more independent in their learning. It was also encouraging to me to read how some of what we were already doing was successful for others as well, even in traditional classrooms.
My oldest is barely into the high school years in our homeschool but college is already on their mind and ours. We are starting a discussion about which of their interests could lead to different careers and what will be needed on a transcript. Behind the scenes, Dad and I are thinking about the financials of it as well.
We have made a pretty good normal for ourselves over the last 5 years. It’s taken some time and I’m still caught off guard on occasion. Fun family activities that others take for granted, like going to the movies, are often not an option for our family.
I’m not usually one for a Word of the Year but when life took an unexpected turn for the whole world, I knew we would need something special to get us through. The first word that came to mind was NOVELTY.
This year, my 8th grader asked for a Computer Science elective. She was ready for a real world programming language after several years of Lego Robotics and other coding activities using Scratch. Thanks to her interest in Minecraft, we began looking for a way for her to begin to learn Java programming for beginners. Thanks to being a part of the Timberdoodle Blog Team, she got to take Java programming as an online self paced course.
