One year ago, I assumed I wouldn’t do any sort of a formal preschool with my kids. Charlotte Mason advocates starting formal lessons no earlier than age six. So why complicate things? I trusted the method, and the wisdom of many home educators who said, ‘Wait on formal academics’. How things change in a year,…
What do we do with our children? Obviously we have to meet their basic needs. Food, water, clean diapers, sleep, shelter. I’d throw ‘secure relationships’ into that list, too. But what about when they aren’t eating, sleeping, or being cleaned? What do we do then? There is a lot of emphasis lately on doing enriching things with…
I like to think that I have an arsenal of songs to sing with my kids. I pull them out when they are tired of being in the car, when we are waiting in line, any time where their patience is running thin and I want to keep the mood light. Of course, they are…
There have been a few times recently when I have not heard my toddler, N, when he is speaking to me. N is incredibly verbal lately, and like most 2.5 year olds, he babbles and repeats himself a lot, so on some level, I’m simply not expecting him to address me in conversation. My husband has called…
I saw it again: another blog post with an at-home preschool schedule that consisted of a morning of indoor activities. I doubt this mom is forcing her kids to stay inside. I even bet that they spend plenty of time outside. But the outdoors deserves an intentional place in our home preschool planning. Last week, the…
When N was on the way, I started researching home education. (Can you say ‘planner’?) Blogs of home educating parents mesmerized me. I saw home education as an opportunity to have a flexible schedule, to live in any number of countries, and to protect my kids from the ‘carrot and stick’ education that I had growing up…
Last year, I decided on a whim that Carl and I should take our kids camping. I felt desperate to be outside and frustrated that I so often failed to get them outdoors. Camping would make this easy. They would be outside because there wouldn’t be anywhere else to be. I wouldn’t have to juggle naps and pushchairs, and…
Even with an incredible four weeks visiting my home state of Indiana, I still find it tough to see all the people I want to see in that amount of time. Weekends go too quickly and Carl has limited time to take off work. Plus, I’m reluctant to have the boys in the car too often….
Fried chicken and hiking Trail Two at Shades State Park. When my mom asked me and my siblings what we wanted to do for Memorial Day, the decision was quick and unanimous. We’ve been going to Shades as long as I can remember, and it is always a feature of any visit we make to…