Fisher Academy: About Us

Inspired by Heart of the Matter's Not Back to School Blog Hop, I've decided to post a peep into our teaching home!  Fun, huh?!  It's been awhile since I posted pictures of the kids and our schoolroom (click here for post: circa, 2005!), etc. so hold on to your pants I'm gonna try and pull a four-posts-in-one!

First off, in a true about us post, I thought you'd probably like to know who is being taught here, right?  So, here goes...

The students:

We have 2 students currently starting year six of Ambleside Online.  They are 12.5 and 11.5 years old, respectively.  Now, I took these lovely mugs and got all through editing them, before realizing that I have every freedom to take more creative poses in more exotic settings... oh well.  :)  Darcy has good advice in her post Do's and Don'ts of School Picture Day, it is important that as homeschoolers we don't forget to take these monumental photos of our kids so that they can see the sequence of their very own history, how they looked EVERY year growing up.  Of course they don't have to look anything like traditional school pictures, thankfully.








...and then we have our Ambleside Online year two student...   oh wait she was absent on picture day.  She'll be there on 'retake' day though for sure.  :)  She's 7.5 years old:








Our two youngest are in year 0 of Ambleside Online.  It is an unofficial schoolyear, basically not really even preschool per se... but education is a life and life starts before birth and so their education begins as soon as they're out, right?  :)  We read lots aloud, do lots of nature study, hang out with the bigger kids and get in on some of their stuff... you know, the life of a homeschooler's tot.  ;)








The teacher:
Well, that's me up there at the top left of this blog... :) I don't love to post pictures of myself, way too conspicuous. I don't even really like to be in pictures at all except to remember that I was in fact present while my kids were growing up, not ALWAYS behind the camera!

The schoolroom:
We do school at home (literally all over our home) and away from home...

"The world is the true classroom. The most rewarding and important type of learning is through experience, seeing something with our own eyes."

Jack Hanna 

Our curriculum:
If you've read this blog before you know that I'm crazy about Ambleside Online's Charlotte Mason education. We stick pretty closely to AO's recommended curriculum. We use MEP maths and The Easy French and Rosetta Stone Spanish and Spell to Write and Read (thanks Richele)


Our day:
I have posted about how I do my scheduling here and here.  What it works out to be in real life is completely dependent on a 267 variables which in themselves vary from day to day.  :)  However, this is the list that keeps us on task and helps us to make sure we get what we need to get done every day.
We all have our own copies, the boys' is for 4 weeks at a time, and mine covers the whole term.
Basically, we get up between 6 and 7, breakfast is at 8, sit-down-together-sit-at-the-table-school starts at 9.  We do a couple things after lunch and try to be done with everything by 2 or 3pm. (that even happens occasionally! ;)





So there you have it folks!  Fisher Academy International Teaching Home, or life of FAITH as it were :)
I hope you'll be inspired to spotlight your own unique homeschools!  :)  Make sure to link up if you do, so we can all be inspired!   Also, check out the Not Back to School Blog Hop posts for TONS of links to other homeschools over at Heart of the Matter!  Fun, fun.