My Montessori Journey

Blog launch

Here is a link to my new homeschool blog.  That's where you'll most often find me from now on.  Hop on over and check it out at Walnut Hill Homeschool.  See you there!!

Thank you SO much!!!

I just wanted you to know that I am so humbled and grateful for your very, very kind words and support after my last post.  Many of you wondered if I will keep the website "open".  At this time I have no plans to take it down.  I think I've already paid my Typepad subscription through next spring, so for now everything that's here will stay right here.  As I said in the last post, within the next few weeks I'm hoping to "launch" my new homeschool blog.  I'll look forward to seeing many of you over there.  Thanks again for your love!

 

The Next Leg of the Journey

OK.............I realize I have been absent from these here parts for a while.  I guess the best way to explain what turned out to be a much longer than expected absence is that I didn't know how to write this post, so I avoided it for a bit, then time just passed, we got busy with family stuff, and here we are about three months later.  So.

Wow!  I didn't think this would be so hard.  What I'm here to tell you tonight is that I am starting a new "leg" of my journey, one that won't directly involve Montessori education.  In February of this year, I informed my school that I would not be returning to the classroom in the fall.  After years of wanting to and months of agonizing over can we?, my husband and I have decided that I finally get to stay home with my sons and be their homeschool teacher.  A very few of you who know me in real life know that this has long been a dream of mine.  Many of you loyal readers are homeschooling mamas yourselves, so you know what it's like to have your heart tugging at you to stay home.  This fall I will have been a mama for ten years.........a full decade.  It doesn't seem possible.  Throughout those years, I have yearned to be able to stay home with my sons.  While I have dearly loved teaching other children (and hopefully that love and joy have been genuinely reflected here), it is time for me to move on.  I am tremendously excited about what the new school year has in store for me.  And I've been researching and planning like crazy to get things up and going here at home.  To bring in some income, I'll be teaching a few private piano lessons and have recently completed coursework to become a licensed Kindermusik instructor.  I'm excited for these new adventures as well.  The best part for our family is that now when I have to go to "work", it will be right here in our home, in the studio I've created in our basement. 

Words cannot adequately express that absolute gratitude I have towards all of you virtual friends out in cyberspace who have visited me in this little spot over the past three years.  I have been so blessed to be able to document what has truly been the highlight of my twenty-year teaching career.  I am thankful to the families and children I have had the privilege of serving over the years. I have been blessed to teach with five wonderful teaching assistants as well who have made it a joy to come to work each day.  Because of all these changes, I won't be posting over here much at all.  However, I hope you'll stop over to visit me once in a while at my studio blog.  You can find it at:  http://walnuthillstudio.blogspot.com  I will also be writing a blog about our homeschooling journey.  I felt it would be too confusing to write about that over here, so I have yet another blog set up for that part of our lives.  Once I am ready to really start posting and paying attention to that blog, I'll write a quick post over here with the URL so you can stop by. 

Again, thanks so much for reading my thoughts these past three years.  I am humbled by your kindness in visiting me here.  Best wishes to each of you on your own Montessori journeys!!