Planning Less, Living More

Every homeschooler under the sun began researching and planning the upcoming school year as soon as summer started. Who can blame them? We find curriculum and all the endless enrichment possibilities exciting. We read articles, survey friends, go to conventions, head to social media and forums and videos and – let's just say it's a …

What Deschooling Looked Like for Us

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution." – Albert Einstein When we began homeschooling almost two years ago I never would have guessed how much I'd learn about my children, my husband, my family, my community and myself as a result... To start, for …

10 Children’s Books on Kindness

I love me some book lists. It's cold outside right now, the leaves have almost completely departed our two large maple trees in the front yard and all I can think about is people who won't have a home to go to for Thanksgiving dinner. And so I'm sitting next to our crackling, wood fireplace feeling …

Heed + be Still

Enough is enough already. Meetings. Money. Appointments. Activities. Go go go. Have you ever sat back and wondered how your schedule spiraled out of control?  Have you ever wondered how you agreed to do so many things for so many other people? Or how you signed up for so many things? I'd like to encourage …

Planning This Year’s Homeschool

Everyone in our neighborhood starts school next week. It feels like summer just started so I'm still not sure how I feel about school buses swinging by our home again so soon. In my last post about getting rid of to-do lists, I wanted to share my process in how I got rid of to-do lists. …

100+ Great Books for Kindergarten Boys

I love books because books are amazing. And I believe I've passed this love on to our kids at an early age (hooray!). There was a point in our homeschooling journey where I started separating the good books from the great, inspiring, educational and life-changing books BUT never forgetting to have a little fun, of course - …

A Simpler Life

When did everything become so complicated? I love visualizing humanity's timeline on earth – from whenever it began whether it be 1,000,000 or 6,000 years ago and a line graph heading straight to today. The line proceeds low on the graph until say, we created civilizations and governments and weapons and farm tools where it rises just a bit. But in …

What our Unschooling Summer Looks Like

Since we homeschool year round we believe our kids are constantly learning – there's no beginning and there's no end to one's curiosity and pursuit to the depth of knowledge – so I'd be lying if I said we "break" for summer. Rather, we shift things around. Summer, for us, has turned into "let's dig deeper and …

Happiness in Homeschooling

As the sun descended behind the mountains, I drove alone toward a quant downtown pub, applying lipstick at red lights and trying to remember how long it's been since I'd seen my girlfriends – all fellow mamas I've known since our firstborns were babies. But this mom's night was different. I knew in my gut although this was "my time" to …

Real Learning + The Future

The future always seems to occupy a large part of our brain. And whether we believe in fate or God's timing or simply the law of nature, pondering our child's future is something no parent can escape. That's when, as a homeschooling parent, I get excited. I get excited knowing our children have the space to grow as …