Growing a Garden, Homeschool Style

Homeschooling means taking a perfect morning to go to Home Depot, pick out very own flowers for the garden, then learn how to dig holes and mix soil, plant and water.

It means watching the way the sun shines in your yard, and the way the wall casts a shadow over the garden, and why.

Observing how many hours the sun shines on the garden, and figuring out if that is long enough for your pretty flowers to grow, learning about how flowers grow, and watching it in action.. (So far, so good. :) )

These two plants have new blooms already!

Homeschooling means doing out subtraction lesson on the sandbox table under the shade from the trees, while Sophie practices climbing up the ladder to the slide and sliding down all by herself, or plays in the swing.

Math is always more fun with a little bit of sunshine and the wind in your hair.

It means writing poetry and drawing pictures at lunch time, or watching YouTube to see what surfing really looks like.

Delaney said, Look Mom, I wrote a poem!

 

Under the ocean

Is a fish.

 

It means learning about things we are interested in in as much or little detail as we like...for as long as we like. (Hello, Month 3 of the Sky and the Universe...) Doing a whole chapter of math in one morning if we are particularly inclined, or just reading about Laura and Mary for hours, because it's a really good part.

It means to work on skills until they are mastered, in an order that makes sense, and not have to skip around and quickly learn things that will most likely be on a standardized test, but don't make a whole lot of sense to learn right now...Yes, AIMS, I'm talking to you and your arbitrary skill set. Hailey did the test all last week, and I tried not to get annoyed every time I read the "Make sure your child gets plenty of sleep and has a good, healthy breakfast." emails. Shouldn't she be doing that EVERY DAY, not just during precious testing time? (No offense, teacher friends. I know it's not your fault.)

It means a bathroom break or water break or snack break whenever you need one, without an evil eye looking at you for daring to be thirsty or need to go to the bathroom.

It means becoming friends with the nice people that work at the library, or the grocery store, or the many places we go...learning to talk politely with people of all ages.

I'm so thankful to be able to raise my kids like this.