Nature Walks & Our Hike Pack

July 26, 2015July 27, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 9 Comments

Nature hikes and nature journals. Two parts of homeschool life that are growing in importance over time. In fact, it has become essential to our life as homeschoolers.

When we first started homeschooling, I assumed that the scheduled “Nature Walk” portions of our curriculum were just a “get them out of the house” option. And while these scheduled walks do get them out of the house, they have become so much more than that to our family.

Nature walks have given us an abundance of time. When we are at home I always feel like the days are slipping by and the children are growing too quickly. Out in nature, everything slows down. Time seems to multiply. Details, thousands of details, spring up all around us. We begin to discover and wonder aloud. We start naming, classifying, drawing and jotting down notes of things to look up later. We sit quietly and reflect. We are lost in a canopied cathedral, where worship and wonder mingle and flow unconstrained.

This year we have been keeping more formal notebooks of our time outside. Seasons, times, sightings, sketches, thoughts, ideas. The six year old loves making tree rubbings against the bark of the biggest trees he can find. My seven year old is quite keen on sketching hawks. The four year has been content to draw bats over and over and over. Guess what? He’s getting quite proficient at drawing bats! His drawing skills improve through this repetition. We are starting to find our bearings a little quicker with practice. Before the compass is pulled out we each take a guess. Which way is North? Over time the guesses have become more accurate. Where is the closest body of water? What are the names of the trees in this forest or park?

Today, I finished reading “Keeping A Nature Journal” by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth. It has inspired me to keep my own journal and quit overseeing my children’s journals.

Summers are difficult where we live. Extreme heat and extreme bugs make outdoor time a misery. The majority of our outings are to parks and the beach. If we rise particularly early, then we are able to go out for a hike in the local preserves. The rest of the year is gorgeous perfection and we are often outside rambling around the farm or in the pine woods nearby. We make great effort to get outside every day and once we are there, I leave the boys up to their own devices for awhile. Its amazing what stories they come home with.

I keep a backpack, stocked and ready for these hikes.

Included in our Hike Pack:

1) (4) 2 x 3 rugs from IKEA
2) Pencil case stocked with pencils (HB, 2B and 3B) erasers and a few colored pencils.
3) Pocket knife
4) Badger Sunscreen and Bug Spray combo
5) Take Along Guides
We use: Caterpillars, Bugs and Butterflies by Mel Boring
Trees, Leaves and Bark by Diane L Burnes
Tracks, Scats and Signs by Leslie Dendy
6) Nature Journals
We use: Classical Conversations Nature Sketch Journals for 7 and 6 year old.
Run of the mill composition journals for myself and the 4 year old.

Also in the pack but not pictured…

7) Diapers + wipes
8) Flashlight for checking tree burrows
9) Cell phone w full battery
10) First Aid Kit
11) Compass

Before we leave for the Nature Walk we usually read a passage from an adventurous book my boys have expressed fondness for. For example, “Wild Animals I have Known” by Ernest Thompson Seton or any of Thornton Burgess’ Animal stories. We make sure we are wearing the correct footwear and that we have been sprayed and lotioned in order to fend off ticks and UV Rays. We grab our water bottles and the boys usually arm themselves with binoculars and wooden rifles. Then, we set out to find the spectacular ordinary and the beautifully mundane. We do not go looking for tigers or elephants. We walk quietly in the nature that is part of our space and time and we try to get to know it a little better and in doing so we know ourselves and each other better.

Boys love to collect things. I am forever turning pockets inside out before loading the wash. I’ve had a few terrified lizards leap out at me and once or twice a wriggly worm. Usually, the pockets are stuffed to the brim with seeds and rocks and bits of twine.

This is quite wonderful for us. On rainy days or unbearably hot days, we pull out those little treasures and sketch them. I have also found these small acrylic boxes from Oriental Trading Co. to be quite useful!

We can enclose paper wasp nest fragments, snake skins, fragile exoskeletons or decaying leaves inside. It is then passed around so the boys can examine their finds without crushing or mangling them.

The clear view from every side is perfect for studying our specimens up close! The boys, inspired by Teddy Roosevelt, have decided to curate their own small museums. We are preserving their best finds each school year and then displaying them in shadow boxes. The boys will be responsible for curating their specimens, labeling them and pinning them in place.

I asked my son the other day, “What is your favorite thing about Nature Walks?” He responded quickly, “Its the biggest space for me to wander and think about all I am learning and all the stuff I still don’t know. Everything feels taped together. I feel really small and really big all at the same time. Mostly, I just like looking at all the wonderful things God took the time to make.”

Planning a Homeschool Year

July 22, 2015July 23, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 6 Comments

Over the last two or three weeks, we have been flooded with questions about planning.

How do we plan a homeschool year? How do we plan with multiple curriculums and multiple children? How do we make sure we get everything in?

The response is simple. We plan with grace in mind.

You can find a hundred and one free planners, organizations tips, bedazzled homeschool room tours and end-all-be-all lists of curriculums. You will not have any trouble finding “answers” for planning a school year. If you are looking for a post that lays out a fool proof plan, you have come to the wrong place.

Planning is hard work. The thought of shuffling it up each year with some massive layout is exhausting to me. So we use the same rubric each year, eleven things we plan on.

Farmhouse Schoolhouse recommendations for best laid plans….

1. Plan on constant changes.
No two school years are ever the same, make that ‘month’, no two months are ever the same. The children are growing! Personalities and learning styles are evolving. New needs arise each month. Last year felt like roller coaster: #1 needed extra help with phonics and then #2 needed lots of attention in the math department, and then it flip-flopped and… wait…oh, it flip flopped again! We started school five weeks ago and the pattern has continued. It keeps me on my toes. Pay attention, you need to keep adapting! An iron-clad, year-long schedule would end up as scrap paper around this schoolhouse. We don’t schedule, we do rhythms. And that rhythm is really more of a framework, that somehow becomes both looser and stiffer with time. We know the goal of each hour but what occurs in each block depends on the ever-changing pattern of our days.

2. Plan on saying “Not right now”
What worked last year may not work this year– and that is ok! One of my favorite activities last year no longer works for our family because my youngest has sensory issues that require more of my time and energy. We’ve had to add new elements into the mix which necessitated a departure from our previous schedule. I’ll admit, it was hard to let go of something that had worked so well for us. But in the end, saying “not right now” and cutting back, opened the window for some truly beautiful things in our lives. You don’t have to say “no.” No is a pretty loud closed door that can isolate communities and friends. “Not right now” says “We’ll get back to you some other time.” I love saying, “Not right now.” It leads to so many other possibilities! I can say “YES” toddler, lets read that book! My eldest children have time to decide what they would like to do next. Unscheduled play. Freedom! Time to be artists, explorers, discoverers. Time is one of the greatest childhood gifts. Its good to have spare time, isn’t it?

3. Plan on not fitting EVERYTHING in.
When we first started, I knew absolutely nothing about this enormous world of homeschooling. I knew I wanted to be with my kids and that I did not want them anywhere near our modern school system. I began to research and soon fell in love with Montessori, Charlotte Mason and Classical Christian Education. As I tried to gain my footing in understanding these approaches, I began to get some heat about our decision to homeschool. Suddenly, my kids and I were in a position of having to prove that homeschool was working. The pressure was on to pull out the organ grinder and call the crowd in, “Look everyone! They are not jumper-clad freaks AND they can read by age 4! Dance, little monkey, Dance!” (Disclaimer: not a single one of my kids read by the age of 4).

I started adding things in and handing out worksheets. 3 weeks into this insanity, my eldest, four years old at the time, looked up and said, “These papers are hurting my heart. Mom, will you run away to the woods with me so we can play?” I had turned my homeschool into everything I wanted to get away from. Why? I was scared of missing out on something. I was scared that my kids would not get the best education possible. I was worried that I could not do it all. I did not like the way people said, “Homeschooling??? Why???”

Truth is, I can not do it all. No one can. It is impossible to teach someone every single available piece of information out there. We made a list of things that were important to our homeschool. Every piece of curriculum, book, handout, etc that comes into our classroom needs to meet those standards. If it doesn’t, we don’t need it. We don’t worry about EVERYTHING; we celebrate our Big Fifteen! We teach from a place of rest.

4. Plan on Toddlers
Like most homes, the first set of toddlers received lots and lots of attention. I was pretty obsessed with them. What they ate, what they played with, what they learned, what their poop looked like. The second set came along and it was pretty much, “Go forage in the pantry for your snack and don’t break anything please!” Last year, while schooling my eldest children, I caught myself shouting at #3 “PLEASE! We have a zillion toys in here, just go and play with something and leave me alone with your brothers so we can finish!” It hurt him. I could see it in his eyes. He didn’t want to go play with a toy. He wanted me. He should get to have me. Trying to plan out a school year with toddlers in tow is like trying to dance a tarantella blind-folded while someone follows you around yanking on your arm and dribbling yogurt down the side of your leg. Its a demanding, frenzied whirlwind. My littlest guys deserve wonder and curiosity and discovery and confidence-building habit training. They shouldn’t have to settle for entertainment or mindless occupation. Is it difficult? Yes, its incredibly difficult. To be honest, I needed to repent of my selfish heart and lazy attitude. I needed to die to self and read “Blueberries for Sal” a hundred times because this is the only chance I have to do that. Mere months from now the opportunity will have vanished. That is what it comes down to: toddlers are an opportunity, not a distraction from older children’s schoolwork. This year I am putting on my big girl panties, mustering up the last dregs of my excitement and energy and pouring everything I can into my youngest kids. I need to plan spaces of emptiness. Pockets of time that belong to them. Then I need to prepare myself to include them outside of those time blocks so we can all join them in their wonder at any given time of day.

5. Plan on sickness.
We organize our curriculum with manilla folders. On the outside of these folders I write down all the possible resources, pinterest ideas and activities that we could use on that given week. However, I never expect that we will complete everything on the list. Because tiny people get sick. If its a bad case of the sniffles, I adjust accordingly. We scratch that big outdoor walk or the trampoline game or anything extra snot-inducing. If they are projectile vomiting we will scrap that whole kitchen experiment series or save it for another week. I never write down dates in ink. No way will I commit to the planner, “Finish Unit 8 by Sept 8.” That is just asking for failure and days of self loathing and doubt. We adjust, we scale back. The kids pick what interests them. We are always learning, but there is never any pressure to learn it all. Ten years from now they may not remember everything they learned on that healthy week 16, but they will have many memories from that difficult week 17. #2 often reminds me, “Remember that once upon a time when I was sick and you wrapped me up in a quilt and gave me a mug of soup and read me all those books about animals? That was my favorite day.” We didn’t do arithmetic or science that day. Ah well, who cares? He remembers coziness, hot soup, the soothing comfort of good books read by the voice of one who loves him. To me, that is the greater lesson and a memory to cherish. Learning that drips down to the very core of who he is.

6. Plan on flexibility!
If its in ink, I am in trouble. I have tattooed my failures, now memorialized in a spiral-bound book I paid $15 for. One of the greatest boons of homeschooling is the flexibility, yet most of us are determined to schedule it away! Flexibility is a homeschool mother’s gift of grace to herself and her home. Please don’t plan yourself into a hard place that, weeks down the road, will make you feel less-than. I think goals are wonderful! Please, write down things you are aiming for this year. How lovely to look back and see what was accomplished. But if your planner is a relentless task master that only works as a whipping post for your sense of worth, scrap that sucker and run to Jesus! If He has called you to homeschool, He will equip you. I believe that with my whole heart. Pray about your school year. He cares about it! Talk with your spouse. Make a tentative plan and inject it with grace and flexibility. Leave room for mistakes.

Schedule GRACE DAYS so that you have entire days devoted to getting back on track. If you have stayed on track, use the grace day as a celebration day or day of thankfulness!

Your identity as a person is not the planner. Put the planner down and back away slowly, please. Don’t plan on perfection. Plan on flexibility. My hubby repeats it at least 9 times a week, “Have some grace for yourself.” I am really hard on myself. I shouldn’t be. This is not the time for my house to look like a magazine cover. Expect legos everywhere. Expect dirty dishes. Expect irremovable stains from science projects. Invite friends over, even when the house is a mess. Take a few extra days to really explore something your kids really enjoyed.

7. Plan on learning alongside them.
I spoke with a group of mamas at a recent homeschool conference and we all agreed: We are susceptible to overcompensating our children’s workload, because of our own perceived academic insecurities. We see the gaping hole in our own education and there is this visceral reaction to run out, find some beefed up program, and shove it at our kids. Take a deep breathe and accept the fact that you suck at math (or whatever your achilles heel is. If you have no achilles heel and are a paragon of academia, congratulations, move on to #8 but know that our chances of being friends just decreased by about 15%). Accept your weakness, then humble yourself and get ready to learn alongside your child. Don’t respond by cramming your schedule with something you are terrified of or loathe unto death, in a blind attempt at insuring your child’s academic perfection. Guess who is currently working her way through Saxon 2? Me! Yup, second grade math. I’m rocking it right now, but in a few short years I will be knee deep in a pit of “Have mercy, Jesus!” Yes, my kids will see me ~~miserable~~ working hard to learn something I failed to learn before. Maybe it will encourage one of them to press on with something they don’t like. Or hey, maybe they won’t learn a single lesson from my sufferings, but at the very least I will finally learn some math! The answer to my insecurity isn’t to blitz my kids with math worksheets today, its to start working hard alongside them now so I can demonstrate that learning is possible.

8. Plan on gratitude!
Maybe last year wasn’t a banner year at your house. Maybe you couldn’t afford to get the curriculum you really wanted. Maybe you didn’t have the budget for a classroom makeover. Maybe it was a bit more serious than all the above…maybe it was a devastating year. Loss of loved ones, life-altering illness, depression, cross-country moves, upheavals in your home church, problems in your community, job loss, foreclosures. Life is hard. Homeschoolers get to face the hard all day long, all together. I’ve known some hard. Hard is hard to plan for because it usually creeps up with all the subtlety of a tornado. And disappointment is rich fodder for that bitter root to take hold and spread fast, tangling up the whole family in its life-sucking thorns. So make room for gratitude in all circumstances. It is breathtakingly difficult at first. But once that gratitude leads to unexpected, life-giving joy over something seemingly insignificant and small in your day, that very gratitude becomes necessary for your survival in the hardest of places. Be grateful for the resources you were blessed with. Thank the Lord for that shabby dining room table your children gather round each day to learn about the God of the universe. Find gratitude for the tiniest things in the midst of overwhelming grief and darkness. Gratitude is a game changer.

9.Plan on going outside
Go outside. Go outside often. Nature should be a part of everyone’s childhood. If you are urban locked, find a park and make it your special place. The best part of my boys’ day is when the door swings outward and the world is opened to them.

10. Plan on self care.
POOF. Where did Mom go? Do your little ones a favor and disappear. You need a break once in awhile. You need time to yourself. Even if all you do is wander around Target alone looking like the lone survivor of a zombie apocalypse, get thee to Target! You don’t have to spend money. Go sit on the seashore. Climb a tree and sit up there by yourself with the squirrels (totally did that once). Sit in a coffeeshop. Leave the kids with your spouse, sister, friend, grandparents, whatever. Leave the kids and GO! And if at all possible, claim a few days of the year for a personal retreat. Not a romantic getaway with hubby (those are important too) I am talking about time just for yourself. Don’t wait to hit rock bottom before you ask for help. Take care of your own health. Schedule your yearly exam. Get your blood work done. Get that funky mole checked out. Take care of yourself. GO ON A PERSONAL RETREAT. If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy, right? Get happy. Get time with Jesus. Get peace and quiet for a few days. You, your hubby and your kids will be the better for it.

11. Plan on fun!
I have a picture of my two eldest children taped on the wall of our classroom. They are tiny little tots, seated at an old play table, scribbling away. I look at it every day. It reminds me that time moves quickly and now is their only chance to be little. Whenever I am tempted to overwhelm their lives with academic nonsense, I look up and remember to keep it simple and let them play. Read lovely books aloud, for the minutes are ticking by. Let them build the transcontinental railroad out of legos instead of filling out a meaningless worksheet. After all, they are only 7 for one dazzling rush around the sun. Yes, lets make a mess. Yes, lets go for that walk. YES. YES. YES. Let us have fun together. You can plan on it!

The Walks Taken

June 12, 2015August 6, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

Our best moments of learning have oftentimes occurred in a forest.

If we can find a quiet wood to walk, then we have found a treasure.

Nothing keeps children engaged in learning quite like ditching the books and fleeing into the trees.
We skip count as we march. We find new leaves to press into our nature journals. We figure out which direction we are traveling in. I will ask my children: Where is the nearest body of water? Where is the best climbing tree? Can we find three different kinds of homes? Recall our last walk in the woods and describe what happened?

Burrows, nests and hollows.

Shells, rocks and tiny fossils.

Strips of birch, pine needles and acorns.

Pockets never return home empty.

Anything can happen when your classroom has no walls.

We try and find a spot to sit still. We stay put for several long minutes and wait to see what happens. Just when we think nothing will change, different birds fly into view, squirrels dash out from previously unseen hiding spots, flowers that had escaped our notice before are now blazing in full view. We might pull out a field guide and try to identify things around us. We might tell stories while we fletch tiny arrows.

There are days when the boys sling rifles across their backs and we march through the woods, seeking out the Green Mountain Boys or the Continental Marines.

Oftentimes there is no plan and I find that those are the best days. When the boys can ramble in the woods free of lessons plans and the word “no.”

Take an unplanned walk in the woods. Pull over and visit that nature preserve you always pass by.

If you feel the weight of all the curriculum you have amassed pressing down on you–do yourself a grand favor and heave it to the side.

Take your little one by the hand and make for the trees!

They will not remember the elaborate handouts.

They will remember the walks taken.

Daily Rhythm

June 10, 2015June 13, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 3 Comments

One of the first questions fellow homeschool Mamas ask me?

“What is your homeschool schedule like?”

It is a common misconception that homeschoolers are stuck at home with nothing to do all day. Unless you live in a very remote area, the opposite is true! There are so many programs, co-ops, classes, lessons, groups, etc. Truly, the mind boggles! Every spring I am inundated with emails, flyers, messages packed with information. Summer camps and science programs. Athletic organizations and music academies. Your schedule starts to feel like a vise around your head before you’ve even committed to anything. Mommy guilt stampedes through your brain, demanding your compliance in sacrificing every free evening upon the altar of team sports for four year olds. Saying “no” on behalf of your family is somehow equated to denying your sweet child the best learning opportunities.

A number of years ago, Ann Voskamp wrote up a lovely post about the seven phases of her family’s day. It has provided a purposeful, meaty framework for our schedule.

The Seven Rungs
1. Listening: A Way of the Spirit
2. Love: A Way of Sacrificing (The heart of everything we do)
3. Labor: A Way of Serving
4. Loveliness: A Way of Seeing
5. Literature: A Way of Seeking
6. Language: A Way of Speaking
7. Logic: A Way of Scaffolding

We then applied our own homeschool rhythm. I teach my children in blocks of time, which is a concept I picked up from Leigh Bortins of Classical Conversations.

If maths start at 1pm, the children have one hour to complete their work, if it only takes 15 minutes then they have the rest of the hour to play. If it takes 30 minutes then they will have the remaining 30 minutes to play. Each hour of our school day is blocked off in this way.

I find this method especially successful for our four rowdy boys.

They engage with a subject and are then released to refresh and renew. Quite often, their play is focused around what they just learned. This is particularly true of history and science… Lewis and Clark move their expedition outside. Nature notebooks are not taken inside but remain in the backyard to acquire more colored bark impressions. They have the choice to continue to enjoy what they are learning about or break from a frustrating challenge and unwind with a long bike ride or a bit of archery.

We have meshed the rungs and our block schedule to create a daily schedule that allows for LIFE and flexibility in our family.

Here is a sample schedule for the older children (second grade) in our home:

Wake up! Stretch! Breakfast!
8AM Listening: A Way of the Spirit
Devotionals , Memory Work, Family Meeting and Prayer Requests
8:30AM Love: A Way of Sacrificing
Find a way to serve someone in the family/Send notes of encouragement to members of our community.
9AM Loveliness: A Way of Seeing
Art, Music, Handicrafts, Review Core Memory/ Free Play upon completion
10AM Literature: A Way of Seeking
History, Bible/Free Play upon completion
11AM Lunch & Literature
Read books aloud while we eat/Free Play

1PM Language: A Way of Speaking
Phonics, Grammar, Copywork, Writing, Foreign Language Study/Free Play upon completion.
2PM Logic: A Way of Scaffolding
Math, Science/ Free Play Upon Completion.
2PM-4PM Occasional remedial work/Music Practice/Free Time
4PM Labor: A Way of Sacrificing
Blessing Hour
5PM-8PM Family Dinner/ Read Alouds

For Further Clarification:

*Free time can mean anything on the farm. Reading books up in trees, shepherding the chickens through the back hollow, bike races, or playing in the mud pit. The boys are in charge of their own free play. As long as they don’t kill anything or set any fires, its pretty much a go.

*We taper in seasonal activities as needed and try to adhere to the rungs as much as possible on those days. The heart of our schedule is our rhythm. The boys like knowing the purpose of each hour. It teaches them to try and live their days well. It helps me remember
that my time with them as small children is fleeting.

We have learned the art of saying “no” in open-ended ways. “Right now, this is not a good fit for our family.” Things might change, we could be up for it some other time, we aren’t slamming the door in your face but “right now” is not the time.

We have also embraced the “YES.” Yes to reserving time for jumping in mud puddles and reading favorite stories over and over. Yes to collecting a million sticks for the sole purpose of building teepees for our chickens to play in. Yes to valuing our children’s time! Their season is so sweet and so very short. Yes, lets read another book! Yes, lets have a sword fight! Yes, lets climb that tree. What we say YES to is just as important as what we say NO to.

Do you value your time? Does your schedule reflect that? What is important to you? Family meal time? Tucking your child in at night? Are the activities you are involved in adding joy and learning or stress and fatigue? Plow through the hard questions you need to ask yourself and wipe the slate clean if need be!

Whistle While…

June 10, 2015August 20, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 7 Comments

Time for “keeping the home” is an essential part of our rhythm.

I have learned the importance of building in times for cleaning the house as a family, instead of on my own.

Is it easier to clean something quickly by myself?

Today it is.

But slowing down and teaching a child to take on the task for himself today, yields over time, a greater independence and self sufficiency later in life. We clean for the future, people!

And so the image of a home in a magazine cover has disintegrated and we never “clean up,” we “practice cleaning up,” because the eventual goal stands firmly at “adults that are knowledgable in the arts of housekeeping and home repairs.”

So we slowly pick our way through chores and the house is rarely ever “all clean, all at once.”

We work side by side “practicing dishes” or “practicing floor sweeps” etc. It is the slow and steady work of someone who is learning to master a skill. My time table is not pleased with this concept, but the future me demands it.

This year we are starting each day with our morning five, which is tailored for each individual child. I have traced their Daddy’s handprint and on each finger is an item they must complete. When the work is done, they get to give Daddy a hi-five! (Many thanks to the incomparable Jill S. for showing me this trick last year).

When schoolwork is done we make sure the classroom is put to rights. The boys use the carpet sweeper under the table. We wipe down the desk and put away supplies, books. etc.

“Blessing Hour” is essential to my health. In the hour before dinner, our boys clean the home while I prepare our evening meal. They understand that their work blesses everyone in the family. “Blessing Hour” relieves the stress I feel as primary homemaker. “Blessing Hour” gives grace to Dad when he walks in through the door feeling tired and run down. “Blessing Hour ” blesses our boys with a relaxed Mom and Dad that now have free time after dinner to join in games and read books and play music. In the seasons when “Blessing Hour” falls to the wayside, I feel its loss keenly.

I am not a Martha (neither Biblically nor of the Stewart variety). When it comes to tending house, I would love to be Martha! Having the skill set and flawless time management needed to keep an immaculate home–wow! But in reality I am a Messy Martha. Someone who desperately longs for cleanliness and order, but am led astray by my rather wild spirit, tendency for creative disasters and propensity for misbegotten adventures that leave my home looking less than clean at best and slightly catastrophic at worst.

I often have to talk my defeated Martha side away from the cliff of despair, which towers over the pit of never-ending laundry, or alternately, the abyss of Legos and crushed cheerios. (I rarely need to dispense encouragement for my Messy side– It is well and thriving, thank you very much!). My husband repeats almost daily, “Have some grace for yourself!”

It is hard enough to balance out my own housekeeping tendencies—add in the four tornadoes I have in constant tow and let the picture complete itself.

If you happen upon our schedule, don’t read “Blessing Hour” and interpret: Immaculate Familial Harmony. It is likely the loudest volume level of our day.

Its a frantic race to throw legos in bins, shove couch cushions in place and scrape whatever that mysterious purple mass of gelatinous quality is, off the wall and into the trash.

There is probably a heavily-armed toddler presiding over this activity, wooden hobbit sword in hand readily leveling out swats on unsuspecting behinds thereby generating an ear piercing cacophony of indignant squalls and protests echoing throughout the farmhouse.

And yet this time of day, carved out with the purpose of blessing, accomplishes just that. Despite the horrific noise level and dubious cleaning jobs, it blesses me bone deep.

It does what tending a home should do. It somehow, miraculously, gives me rest.

The WHY

April 28, 2015July 27, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

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.