- James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
- The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman
- The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
- Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
- George's marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl
- Beowolf (text updated by Robert Nye)
- The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul by Kimberly Kirberger
- Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
- The Witches by Roald Dahl
- A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
- The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery
- Goosebumps by R.L. Stine
- Old Yeller by Fred Gibson
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- Heartbeat by Sharon Creech
- The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
- Harry Potter: The Deathly Hollows by J.K. Rowling
- Planet Janet by Dyan Sheldon
- My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
- The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket
- Sounder by Lewis Armstrong
education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire
Click here to view our educational activities from summer 2008
Click here to view a summary of the 2007-2008 school year
What Is Our Homeschooling Philosophy?
We're excited about facilitating a learning lifestyle that encourages free high-order thinking, problem-solving, and inquiry; one that emphasizes discovery, interaction with the world at large, and hands-on adventure.
We encourage our kids to question everything: authority figures, teachers, scientific "fact," religious doctrine, our values as parents, everything. Doesn't all learning begin with a question?
I love learning and making discoveries with my girls. They often witness my excitement during the learning process, as well as my frustration.
It's good for them to see me getting confused, asking questions, searching for resources, and eventually coming up with hypotheses, answers, and creative solutions.
This gives them the opportunity to see me as a regular person, not an expert. We are students together, and this makes all the difference.
But what is my approach, technically speaking, you ask? My approach is a progressive, incidental fusion of secular Charlotte Mason, high-tech Montessori, and classical education (logic, Latin, rhetoric, Shakespeare, poetry, etc.).
Mainly, I create our curriculum myself with a bit of elbow grease, creativity, tons of research, help from public school teacher-friends and fellow home-schoolers, and with expert analysis and feedback from my kids. : )