We only experience childhood once.

At first, I chose to keep my children at home because I wanted their childhood to be protected and enjoyed to the fullest.

I wanted their world to be filled with dirt and sunshine and books.

We chose to homeschool.

This is the path we have set upon to help one another seek God.

Their spiritual inclination, the shaping of their character, the passion in their hearts, over time these elements have risen to the top of the list of why we homeschool.

The acknowledgment of my own personal limitations and abysmal failings has also heightened over time.

There is no earthly way my children can learn every piece of information out there.

I can not teach it all.

They can not learn it all.

After accepting that bit of truth, our homeschool style began its never ending metamorphosis. We constantly change. We have learned to forage, evaluating what stays and what goes. Discovering what remains true, good and beautiful for our children to engage with.

We are a home that strives to cultivate wonder, not entertainment.

We engage slowly, playing skillfully in these tender early years and savoring the gift of discovery.

This past May I had the privilege of attending a few seminars given by Sonya Schafer of Simply Charlotte Mason. She was easily one of the best speakers at the FPEA Convention.  She touched upon a topic close to my heart: Which question do we ask when we want to know if our children are learning well? She posed two questions to consider. The first, “Is my child learning enough?” and the second, “Who is my child becoming and what does he care about?”

I am committed to the latter question because I am not interested in creating tiny humanoid google search engines.

I am passionate about who my children are becoming in Christ.

My daily child-centered energies are focused on loving my children well, gathering knowledge that forms who they will become, sharing stories and ideas that will shape who they are today and above all, pouring the Biblical foundation upon which they will stand.

I am teaching my children to feed themselves from Scripture.

I am training them to have a sharp eye for truth and beauty.

I am gifting them with time to explore and wonder and create and grow.

Those are the standards I try to flesh out each day in spite of my sinful nature and my, at times, frail standards which waver on days when the laundry has accumulated to an exceptionally horrid degree.

If homeschooling has taught me anything it is humility and flexibility.

Our homeschool is a hodgepodge of curriculums and ideas. A Year of Playing Skillfully, Simply Charlotte Mason, Ambelside Online, My Father’s World and Classical Conversations. We learn through beautiful books and puddles and farm chores. Life is messy and chaotic on this farm packed with four kids, eleven hens, three turkeys and an overly confident west highland terrier. We yell at each other more than we should. We often choose selfishness in the moments when we should choose selflessness. I am never, ever caught up on laundry. Yet we have fallen into grace and will remain there until He comes to make all things new.

Welcome to Farmhouse Schoolhouse.