A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

On our way to church Nature Angel said, "My friends all went back to school, and the all say they hate school." (These are 8- and 9-year-olds.) I said, "Oh!  How sad!  I'm glad that you love school!" "I do?" Nature Angel asked. "Well, you spent all weekend working on your book, and when I told you to put it away to do something else you were disappointed," I answered.  "That was school." "It was?" "Yes.  School is writing, reading, drawing, thinking, building, learning--all kinds of stuff that you do every day without even being told to do it." "Oh . . . I love writing and drawing and reading . . . and I can't wait to go home and write some more . . . yeah, I do love school," she said musingly. I let the conversation rest there, but when we got home that Sunday afternoon, Nature Angel spent all of her free time drawing illustrations for her story.  I'm going to help her make it i...

Monday morning we (mostly--I can never count Rose Red in these things) started our school-year morning routine.  We're starting half an hour later than we will be starting in a couple more weeks, and I still have a few habits to get better at, but I'm still enjoying morning running, and I am just not ready to give it up. Besides, it's still too hot for afternoon exercise. (It's starting to be too dark to be out at 6 am--I'll be shifting to afternoon running once the temperature drops.) Lola loves combing long, smooth hair.  And Belle is so patient with her. I still get up between 5 and 5:30 am and start my day with scripture study, journaling, and prayer.  Then I get on my running gear and hit the pavement with one or two teen daughters while another teen daughter gets the privilege of mindless internet time in return for babysitting the babies.  If I get home fast enough I can get a shower before throwing on my clothes. Everyone else is to be up by ...

Ummm, school hasn't started here. But it has. It's kind of out of my control. I guess I could put my foot down and make it stop. But why? I'm still working on a schedule and chore charts for the year ahead.  It's time for a system change in the chore department as the kids are a year older and a year more experienced. The one plan I am committed to is an hour's quiet time after lunch for each child under 8 . . . and maybe for me.  I've been working on training the kids how to do this for just about a week now. They're getting there. The babies are the wild card, but isn't that what babies always are? So, it's August and local public schools start in a week. Urgh. I'm not ready for that. At all. I did counsel with my husband about the darling, super-fun-sounding forest school that would happen every Monday of the school year.  We decided against it. Immediately I felt a sense of peace. Right decision. For our sweet ...

June We visited a library petting zoo. We played games at the library, too. Nature Angel created and ran a preschool program:  She called it "boy time". . .      . . . and "girl time." We did lots of gorgeous hair styles. We provided temporary shelter for an injured dove. And we went to the lake often!!!! We climbed rocks . . .  . . . and got brave on park climbing structures. We did a lot of digging in the sand. We put up an 18 foot rope swing. We went to library science programs to see cool animals. And we got even braver about climbing!     The big girls went away to camp (some more than once!) July We celebrated the 4th at home. We had a lot of picnics.  One really, really hot day we played with frozen ice balls. We drew pictures--this one is by Nature Angel.  Can you see the peacock? Belle knitted a mon...