Greatest Lesson of Life at Home

Parents, what do you want? Written by Amy Henry July 22, 11:26 AM Somewhere between the Roseanne Barrs and Martha Stewarts of mothering has to be a resting place. It is here I want to be, to spend my days focusing not on what best massages my maternal ego, but on what matters: Giving grace [...]

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Crazy Life!

Crafton family enjoys rare closeness after seven years together at sea After seven years at sea, the Crafton Five are coming ashore, but slowly. They are in no hurry to shed the awe they feel about what they have accomplished: an 83-month, 30,000-mile circumnavigation of both the globe and the roughest years of their kids’ [...]

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One Thousand Gifts

faith tracy austin alexandra (princess) aislin (flower child) muddy acres – charlotte mason mecca music psalms the color purple mobile phones home school dark chocolate mt. olivet friends Sonlight piano lucy, gracie, goose, veronica, socks, sophie, angel, jasmine, fred, georgie, roxy, sugar, augustus, and however many chickens call this place home today bird feeders my [...]

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Call me an unschooling drop-out!

Interestingly, Sharon Astyk blogged about unschooling this week.  She does touch on some of the things that were troubling me. I still like many of the ideas about unschooling, but it just doesn’t ‘feel’ right in our home school. Maybe it’s about me and my control issues and maybe that’s not a bad thing. I [...]

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In the home stretch

It’s hard to believe that I’m now planning the final ‘year’ of school for my oldest.  Time sure has flown since that day way back when he cried for hours because he thought we were ruining his life. Amazingly, it’s been a much more difficult task to plan for a high school senior.  The school [...]

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Balance ~ Real Life

Blah.  Read about one of those overly acadmic families that make me want to puke. Does balance even exist in our culture any more?  Am I doing my kids a disservice by teaching them to keep school, sports, social life, church, and home in equal perspective? Sometimes I think I should give up.  It was [...]

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Looking Back ~ The First Decade of the Millenium

My friend Sherri asked this question on Facebook: How has your life changed in the last 10 yrs? On January 14th, 2000 I worked my very last day outside of the home.  I gave up an excellent salary and a nice office to stay home with my three children.  At that time they were 2 [...]

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Letting Go – Week #6

We’re still hanging on.  It feels strange and completely foreign to me and it’s easy to see why some families give up early on in the game.  It’s unsettling!  Especially after homeschooling for nine years with Sonlight only – there hasn’t been any deviation. I’m sure the added stress of our Holiday – Thanksgiving, Christmas, [...]

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Letting Go – Week #3

I’m not going to pretend that *poof* overnight our house has become some hotbed of creativity and work.  Honestly, not much has changed in our day-t0-day lives except for the absence of pressure to get everything done.   At first Princess was entirely against the idea and even made a sad-face-smilie on my FB wall [...]

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Home…. STILL!

I’m excited to see what this school year is going to bring to our family.  For the first time in YEARS we will have NO outside activities in the evening during the week, except actual basketball games which are really more fun than work. Of course, we went on vacation for two weeks in September.  [...]

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More life school!

Austin is helping me paint the kitchen this week.  I’ve finally reached the point where I can’t stand looking at that 1970s wallpaper staring out at me.  Probably because my desk now faces said wallpaper and I can’t escape it!  Okay… he’s actually painting the kitchen, I’m just supervising.  In any case, I can’t wait [...]

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Home, at last!

First day back after our two week trip to visit family in Illinois.  I’m sitting at the computer pondering whether I should make coffee or go snooze for another 20 minutes or so.    There is a load of laundry ready to fold, too.   And school planning….  argh. Back in July, I scheduled the month of [...]

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Age segregation interferes with children's natural means of learning.

Why We Should Stop Segregating Children by Age: Part I–The Value of Play in the Zone of Proximal Development When you are little and just with kids your own age, the range of possible activities is restricted by the knowledge and abilities of those in your age group; but in collaboration with older kids there [...]

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Early School Days

This picture is my favorite.  I’ve wanted to post it for a long time, but first I had to sift through all the old-fashioned photographs in boxes and FIND it! And… because they’re so cute… Even earlier school days:

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COLLEGE EDUCATION: 'More Options' are Meaningless!

Okay.  I need to scream.  That’s what blogs are for, right? There is a rather heated conversation on the Parenting forums at Sonlight.  Over and over and over again, people are saying “My kids MUST go to college because they’ll have <get ready><here it comes> MORE OPTIONS.” HELLO PEOPLE!  More options mean nothing.  Zero. Zilch. [...]

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