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autumn. out there.
I might be making a terrible mistake. I might be doing homeschool really really badly. I am not sure. But it’s fall. Autumn. (If you like the fancy pants name of the season. And I’m all for any season that has two names. Just like any kid with two names. Or more. You know how I roll.) It’s beautiful outside. Leaves are literally drifting to the ground all around our yard in an idyllic fashion. You don’t need a sweatshirt but jeans feel great. A crunching sound is created under little size 11 feet. It’s just too perfect out there to be in here. So I keep shooing all of…
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The Art of Beethoven
Sometimes I get homeschool so wrong. And sometimes I get it a little better than that. But mostly I am in the middle of the mundane. And I get weighed down with the lists I fail to complete the schedules I forget to follow the mess and mire that swirls and settles on our house of a Monday. I can get pretty lost pretty fast. Which is why moments like the following can shock the sunshine right back into my day. I have this idea for our homeschool for a weekly music lesson. (And by “I have this idea” I really mean “Charlotte Mason had this idea”.) We study one…
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And This Is Why I Really Homeschool . . . . And How I Mess Up . . . . And How I Try To Do Better
This photo is bad. Just too much sun, bad timing. All that. But even its awfulness, I think it’s pretty cute. Because it still reveals a certain aspect of my kids. And isn’t life like that? Real. Funny in its irony. Joy in the failures. It’s what my life really looks like some days every day. And it’s what our school – the school at our house – looks like too. I have written about this before. Homeschool. The highs. The lows. And all that in between. Today I have the opportunity to write about it a little more over on this blog. Thanks for checking it out.
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Next Subject – Science
You’ve already read about the routine. You know we eat scrambled eggs every Wednesday morning and that on Fridays we bake together. Pretty soon any number of you could run my household – more smoothly and efficiently than I myself can. (Ahhh, Master Plan is progressing nicely. Cue sinister soundtrack.) During my few years of homeschooling I have discovered that I really have to diligently schedule the subjects that I would gloss right over. (You know, I never have to remind myself to read to the kids or to listen to great music with them or to draw a daffodil or to paint a picture.) So around here –…
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Baking Day
I’ve been pursuing schedule around here – you know? Chasing shalom and striving for order. Conquering chaos and choosing structure. (I have to keep working so hard at it because I keep struggling so mightily.) I made a list of topics/ideas/subjects that I want to teach the kids and I divided those ideas up and picked one or two to focus on each day of the week. (I really had to break this down into its simplest form for me to finally take action. I’m a Big Ideas person. I love The Dream. The Ideal. And I like to write it all down in impossibly tidy rows and schedule the…
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Sometimes It Looks Like This
Homeschool looks different in every house. (At least, I assume it does. I have not personally been at every homeschool house – right?) Some days it looks pretty normal. And I like that. And there are other days. Days when I like homeschool less because of what my children are learning and more because of how they are learning. And with whom. And, like life, some days get a little rowdy. A little out of control. But I kind of like that too. And finally, there are some moments in some days that just make me laugh.
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In Search Of . . . Schedule
At our house, in this homeschool, living this life . . . it seems I am always in search of more routine. Some structure. A few seldom-changing, set-almost-in-stone daily-weekly-hourly occurrences. In a word – consistency. I thought I had that down pretty well back when I had just three kids. Riley was being homeschooled. London and Mosely were toddlers. And I was at my planning prime. (I didn’t know it then, however.) Our days were organized. The girls were in a predetermined routine. Riley was a diligent student. Mosely and London had blanket time and crib time and play-alone time. I even had a handy, ultra-organized, color-coded chart hanging…
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Close Enough
Last week we visited our new favorite field trip place again – Pisgah National Forest and the Pisgah Wildlife Center. The kids attended a class about opossums. Apparently, Bergen was paying attention. Today I asked him to return some math toys to their proper basket. After he had completed his chore, he said, “Okay Mom – I have returned them to their native habitat.”
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Speaks For Itself
I’m not sure I run a great homeschool. Although I don’t think I run a bad one. There are a lot of things I do poorly. (It would be too detrimental to my psyche to list them.) But I think I do one or two things pretty well. (Probably because they are my favorite so they’re easy for me.) This is what we do well. We read. A lot. And a vast variety considering my homeschool’s median age is probably four. (Math is not something I do well.) I love Charlotte Mason, a British educator whose philosophy I have snagged as my own. A major part of her educational foundation,…
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School Days
You know what I love? Borrowing ideas from people far more clever than I. I saw a picture of my friend Kate’s children playing with spaghetti noodles at a table. I took her idea. And did it at my own table. With my own kids. At first, they couldn’t get over the novelty of the fact that Mommy had just dumped noodles all over the table and actually instructed them to play with their food. It was great. London spelled her name and underlined it. Hawkeye spelled a “b” and asked me to help him form the remaining letters. Mosely created a large head with an ultra-squiggly beard that made…
