In The Flow
I said the words “historical disaster” — and my kitchen erupted into a frenzy of baking soda and vinegar, clay and cardboard. Our homeschool group is hosting a Historical Disaster Fair on some yet-to-be-determined date. (Cool idea, eh? I got it here.) Today, I figured, was as good a day as any to tell the […]
Books for Boys: Sandra Dodd’s Big Book of Unschooling
Sandra Dodd’s son, Marty, is right: her Big Book of Unschooling makes an excellent bathroom book. Broken down into small, manageable bits, Sanda Dodd’s Big Book of Unschooling is inspiration waiting for action. It’s accessible, welcoming — and the perfect anti-dote for parental self-doubt. Her common sense words help you let go and trust and […]
I’ve Been Nominated for an Award!
Kim, of Kim’s Play Place, recently nominated me for my first-ever homeschool blog award. The awards are given by Alasandra’s Homeschool Blog, an intriguing site if ever I saw one. Recently, she’s been running a series of posts covering the controversy the erupted when school kids sang a song about President Barack Obama. She’s also […]
Going with the Flow (or, Why Real Life is More Interesting than School)
I started the day with a plan. My plan was neat and orderly and included things like Spelling with Boy #1 and Reading with Boys #2 and #3. My life, however, is not neat and orderly. Apparently, I’d forgotten that I have four boys with minds of their own. The trouble started while doing reading […]
The First Day of School
Today, kids all around town woke to alarm clocks and backpacks. Mine awoke to a pile of cardboard tubes and hacksaws. While other kids crammed into desks on a beautiful, perfect 73 degree day, mine were sawing tubes in two. While other kids rose and sat to the sound of a bell, mine created contraptions […]
Kid Power
“It’s only really in America that parents have no expectation of their kids until age 18. Then they expect them to get into a good college and if they do that, they can live off their parents’ money for another four years.” — Zac Sunderland Have you heard of Zac Sunderland? He made news a […]
Skipping School
I would make a horrible school parent. My boys are homeschooled during the school year, but this summer, my oldest three are all taking summer school. It seems a bit funny to set alarm clocks and pack backpacks in the summer — especially when you don’t all year — but hey, I’m a homeschooler. We […]
Natural Learning
Today started with no real plan. Boy #3 had speech this morning and gymnastics and baseball scheduled later this afternoon. (I know — I think that sounds like a lot of one kid too. But it’s the last day of speech and the last day of gymnastics, and the only day of the week when […]
Political Purity Over Protection of Children?
Thirteen-year-old Daniel Hauser has returned home. Hauser is the (homeschooled) Minnesota boy who last week disappeared with his mother, Colleen, in an effort to avoid court-ordered chemotherapy. The case has obviously sparked a lot of debate. It touches on medical ethics, parental authority and the rights of individuals to make choices out-of-step with the mainstream. […]
Applied Knowledge
It’s a beautiful day outside today — sunny and 70 degrees. So when it came time to read this afternoon, I decided to apply my new-found knowledge of the male brain. Instead of making the boys come inside (they’d been happily playing outside at Grandma and Grandpa’s), I took the books outside. Instead of insisting […]