Humuhumu Trott - Homeschool Humuhumu

A Japanese structure, brightly painted red with a peaked roof, overlooks a manicured garden.

A trip to the Japanese Tea Garden

Golden Gate Park's Japanese Tea Garden is now free to San Francisco residents, so we learned about Japan and took a field trip.

Curriculum

Exploring the World through Story

First impressions of Exploring the World through Story, a literature-based curriculum.

A stained-glass scene depicting aspects of culture and knowledge.

Methods

Secular homeschooling

We're doing "secular homeschooling," which means that we aren't teaching from a religious viewpoint. It's not something I've talked about here, and it's not a phrase I find myself using very often, because it's not something that comes up. We're not religious. I was raised without religion, in a corner

The Golden Gate Bridge. In the far background, rolling green hills, in the foreground, a sandy beach.

Social

How lucky am I?

It was sunny and hot yesterday. In the afternoon, we went to the beach. That alone is extraordinary. I felt so grateful that we were able to be there, my toes in the sand, a just-right breeze on a hot day, watching Wanda jump and play in the sand and

Wanda's feet and lower legs are seen standing on a curved wooden board, with a nubbly black cushion top.

Life skills

Balance board

Wanda's ADHD means she's gotta moooove! Adding a balance board to our homeschooling has been an effective accommodation.

Painted background scene from a Disney animated Mickey Mouse short, showing L'arc du Triomphe in Paris.

Geography and cultures

Impromptu France

How an unplanned "trip" to France took shape—without disrupting our daily routine. Too much.

A message in a bottle, washed up on a beach.

Language arts

The point of language

I try to help Wanda keep some perspective about language arts. The point of it all is communication: sharing an idea with an audience. If the idea has gotten from the speaker/writer's brain to the intended audience's brain—intact, with as much nuance and understanding as is needed—then

An old painting of a gray-haired man in 17th-century scholar garb, taking a knife to the tip of a feather quill.

Tools

Free writing skills assessment and practice with Quill

Quill's free online tools have quickly become a useful part of our language arts learning.

Fun stuff

Ciabatta!

I coached Wanda through making her first loaf of bread, a ciabatta.

A child faces away from the camera, arms outspread, wearing a bright pink hooded jacket.

How to

How we told our daughter we were switching to homeschooling

I used an analogy about a one-size-fits-all jacket to help our daughter understand this big change.

A sign saying "ANY SALAD CAN BE A CAESAR SALAD IF YOU STAB IT ENOUGH"

Media recommendations

Homeschooling pedagogy nerdery

One of my favorite spots for learning about how to teach is now accepting new members.

Book recommendations

Book Day Supreme

A very special Book Day: a field trip to Alibi Bookshop in Vallejo!

A slice of quiche is topped with bright pink onions and small purple blossoms, with the words FAST LUNCH IDEAS.

How to

Quick lunch shortcuts

These tips and tricks let me whip up a not-entirely-tragic lunch for myself in the few minutes I have before our lunch break.

A young girl in a yellow dress is hovering in midair over a bed, her hair flying. Overlaid text in white: JUMP ON IN!

How to

Introduction to homeschooling

A quick-start guide to homeschooling, or at least how and why we're homeschooling.

Illustration of cats playing musical instruments in the snow, by Louis Wain

Methods

Our winter break

Every winter, from the day after Thanksgiving through to the week of Wanda's birthday in early January, we ease way up on our schooling and take a break of sorts. I've written before about how we manage our breaks. Wanda and I decide together how we want them to go.

Methods

Deciding to homeschool

How did we know when it was time to make the leap to homeschooling?

An open cardboard box atop a stack of flattened cardboard boxes.

Life skills

In praise of incomplete ideas

Not every idea becomes something real to the outside world, and that's just fine.

Three images of Wanda, age 8, reading chapter books.

Book recommendations

Books we've loved in 2021

We're sharing some highlights from the reading we've done over the past year.

Tinkerbell hovers next to the front of a pink and red Christmas card with the words "From All of Us" in white.

Fun stuff

A day of Swedish Christmas, with Kalle Anka

You know Kalle Anka better as Donald Duck, and a Swedish Christmas isn't complete without him.

Writing

Writing paragraphs, The Writing Revolution style

In some ways, writing is a strength area for Wanda. In other ways, it's the area where she needs the most support.

Wanda, wearing a Santa Lucia crown, with our Christmas tree.

Geography and cultures

Holidays around the world, via Acorn Airlines

Wanda and I yust go nuts at Christmas. We spend each December learning about how the world celebrates, with our very own fictional airline.

Wampanoag chef Sherry Pocknett, sharing a meal with Padma Lakshmi

Media recommendations

Taste the Nation, Thanksgiving episode

Wanda and I just watched the Thanksgiving episode of the new "holiday edition" of Padma Lakshmi's show Taste the Nation (available on Hulu), titled "Truth and the Turkey Tale." Each episode of Taste the Nation spotlights a culture in America—mostly immigrant cultures and also Indigenous—and through that culture's

Curriculum

Free homeschool curriculum

There are outstanding free educational materials available to homeschoolers, including many aligned to common core standards. I've collected a list.

A dozen kids in a circle, holding the edges of a colorful parachute high over their heads.

Social

Homeschool socializing

A look at what homeschool socializing was like in San Francisco, before the pandemic goobered everything.

History

If You Lived During the Plimoth Thanksgiving

A new, outstanding, Native-authored book about what really happened at Plymouth in 1621 is a welcome shift in teaching about Thanksgiving.