In all the host of educational projects and curricula and programs, I have found no greater teachers than nature itself and a stack of excellent stories. Nature gently teaches foundational ecology, botany, zoology, geology, meteorology, astronomy and physics, even math. Time spent in nature brings strength to the body, wonder to the mind, peace to…
Our family reads the Bible every morning and evening. We keep our study short to make it doable and peg it to everyday events, like breakfast and bedtime, to incorporate it into our routine. During breakfast, we read the Bible, practice a memory verse, pray and sing a hymn or the doxology. We go slowly…
I realized a year into homeschooling that I was planning our days backwards. I had been making long lists of goals and resources that I wanted to implement, then cramming them into a swelling schedule. Thus, by the second Tuesday of every term I was either stressed or failing. Thankfully, I found a better way….
In Homeschool Planning Guide Part I, you studied your daily rhythm. Now it’s time to use those insights to artfully form a routine for your family. Make a second hours chart and lay your rhythm finder alongside it. Brainstorm options and play with your ideas, moving things around in different combinations. I like to use…
In Homeschool Planning Guide Part I, you studied your daily rhythm. In Homeschool Planning Guide Part II, you used those insights to build a rhythm-rooted routine for your family. Now let’s homeschool plan. Okay, now you can take out your goal sheet. It’s time to decide what you are going to do and what you…
Children are a wonder. Their hearts are already inclined to drink deeply of knowledge and beauty and their hands are ready to take on new challenges. So developing their curiosity and creativity is less like building from the ground up and more like nourishing what is already inside them. In 2016, I made a dreamy…
Each day after math lessons, we gather around the table to read a poem, recite our memory work, track the calendar, read aloud, draw and study our Word of the Day. That is, we unpack some big idea in one word each day. I write the day’s Word on the board for the kids to…
Simple living is a hot topic lately, both in print and in the echo chamber of the internet. The idea is not so much a new trend as a return- we are grownup children drawn back to the quiet and still and small. We reach for it, but it often eludes us. We long to…
Reds doodledoo in our gong-like metal barn. Pregnant cows moan from neighboring pastures. Squirrels dart down bare branches. Amid them birds sing a dozen echoing tunes. Above them geese honk, heading north. Beyond the high wall of naked trees, Blue mist lays upon a dewy knoll Under a purple sky. The slope dead ends into…
Nonworking parents, I created a potential daily schedule to help you as you plan your coming days with kids home from school. I don’t know your kids’ styles and interests like you do, but I have planned and practiced many gentle and fruitful days at home with my lower elementary-aged children. So glean what you…
When I first read Little Women, I was 23 and I was Jo. Adventurous, free-spirited, confident, loud, a bit self-absorbed and dramatic. Not pretty Amy’s pettish sort of dramatic, but a bold blundering kind. Then I had children and soon felt like Meg midstory, when she mothered twins. Absent. Meg was occupied, confused, imperfect, tired….
I came across William Blakes poem, “The Chimney Sweeper,” in Suzanne U. Clark’s book, The Roar on the Other Side: A Guide for Student Poets. She teaches, “Blake wanted to protest the cruel treatment suffered by young boys in the eighteenth century who were sometimes sold for labor by their impoverished parents. The speaker of…
Freedom is in believing God’s promises more than our worries. It is in loving His commands more than our desires and trusting His truths, even when it means discounting our own thoughts. Real freedom is not a throwing off of moral restraints or an unwillingness to yield; it is not a gratification of self as…
Last week, I returned to the tranquil cottage where my daughter and I spent our first week out of the NICU. This time, I was taking a personal prayer retreat there; last time, I was quarantining my newborn from her sister’s flu germs. I had not been there in a year. And I had to…
This post is part of my series, Letters to My Children (more here). I wrote this letter to my daughter, though the message applies equally to sons. My Daughter, These years, as I pray for you and mother you, I pray also for your mother. You need a mother who will affirm and uphold you, who…
Love and obedience are inextricably linked. During the last supper, Jesus states the importance of obeying His commands quite clearly. This passage once intimidated me, but now it comforts me. “If you love me, you will keep my commands.” John 14:15 “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he is the one who loves.” John…
After six weeks in the NICU, our baby’s going home day was set for January 3. At 3:00 AM that morning, our 3 year old climbed in our bed with a fever. It was the flu. Despite vaccinations and caution, the flu was in our house on going home day. Our preemie could not stay at the hospital, but…
Through the past four months, most days were marked by a steady and unearned peace. But, as I have recounted in this series, some included bouts of fear and tears. I can say with the Psalmist, When I said, ‘My foot is slipping’ your unfailing love, Lord, held me up. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy….
Our daughter was born eight weeks early as planned and has spent several weeks in the NICU as expected. While I took the respite of the decade in the hospital for four weeks, my husband and both of our moms took on my tasks at home. Families from church brought meals and invited my kids…
The doctors said our daughter could not survive labor. Thankfully they had a plan and I knew God would strengthen me for the five-month-long journey. I sought God more fervently than I had before, but I knew less about faith and strength than I realized. SEPTEMBER. I thought God would empower me through some subconscious underpinning…
I sat on my couch with kids piled up on my lap as long as I could, soaking up every moment before I left for the hospital. Closing the front door and riding through town felt strange- I would not see these familiar places or even feel the rumble of a car for thirty-one days. Thankfully we…
I have a rare and dangerous pregnancy complication with our fourth child. In a nutshell, our healthy little girl cannot survive even early labor. To ensure that I do not go into labor, my doctors scheduled a preterm c section and recommended I be monitored in the hospital for a full month before delivery. After birth, our…
I have dubbed my approach to homeschooling my preschoolers Library Books and Rabbit Trails. It’s simple and wonderful. We read books aloud and they do what kids do- they ask questions. I call their questions rabbit trails and enthusiastically follow them… into more books. The answers stock library shelves. More books generate more questions that…
I did not become a nurturer on my first child’s birthday. In fact, it took three children for me to finally feel confident and interested in the job of thoroughly nurturing my family. Three kids in four years. The intensity of having kids so close in age was the wake-up call that changed our lives…
I reread Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and was halted by a wisdom-packed conversation between dutiful brave Aragorn and glory-hungry complaining Lady Eowyn. So I chalked a fraction of it on my kitchen wall. Aragorn’s advice is not just applicable to a shieldmaiden itching for battle, but also to a woman at home doing quiet chores,…
My kids and I spend a lot of time outside. Nature has become a mainstay in our family life and has proven to be a wellspring of joy and countless educational opportunities. Here, I’ll share several reasons why I have given nature a central role in our days. First off, we love it. The kids beg…
I remember being six years old living in a log cabin on Texas acres. I remember sitting on the porch watching a lightning storm with my dad. And watching deer at dawn from the panoramic window and sitting on a sun-bleached paddle boat on the pond’s edge and stuffing apron pockets with hillside wild blackberries….
Here in California, spring comes in late February. What an adjustment for us after living in Upstate New York! We love taking a stack of books and cups of cocoa into the yard or bagging them up for a trip to the park. Most of our park time is spent running and climbing and yelling…
So your child is interested in horses (or beetles or manta rays or castles). If you already read my post, Library Books and Rabbit Trails, you know how great a resource the library can be for answering your kids’ marvelous questions and generating new questions. But you may have a burning question of your own,…
This letter to my son is part of the Letters to My Children series. Learn more about these letters here. October 2016 Son, As you grow into a man, you will navigate many emotions and temptations. Sometimes they will feel so strong that you will feel you cannot rein them in or reign over them, that…