I have such a hard time answering when someone asks the seemingly simple and small-talk question, “What are you using for history?” The answer feels like nothing and everything. Nothing because I’m not using any prepackaged or planned history curriculum. Not AO, not MFW, not CC, not SOTW, nor any other acronym. There is no…
As I’ve been pondering plans and ideas for our next school year (only 8 weeks of our school calendar left!), I realized that my oldest pair are headed into later elementary (10yo & an almost-8yo who works hard to keep up with his older brother) while my younger pair are ready for preK work (typical…
I wrote last week about how and why I use audio books in our homeschool, so I thought I’d write a little follow-up about audio books for mothers. I have found audio books to be the best way to get to very long or very difficult (even just in terms of names or accents) classics,…
Six years ago on my previous blog, when my oldest who were 4 & 2, I wrote this: I have a secret. I can’t believe I’m making it public. I dislike reading aloud. Oh, I enjoy listening to books, whether it’s Matt narrating or it’s a book on tape. I highly enjoy taking books in…
Is happiness an emotion reserved for those who have an easy life? Right now I have a child who thinks happiness is a life without math fact drill pages. And, he’s onto something that misery is dragging one’s feet and taking three hours to do what should take one three minutes. However, cause and effect…
My third-born child just turned 5 last week and my fourth-born will be 3 next month. I am in my second round of pre-k now, and although I have a plan, it doesn’t resemble a conventional preschool or kindergarten scope and sequence or curriculum. I liken the pre- and beginning-reading years to the pre- and…
I have a whole collection of beautiful fairy tale picture books. I collect what some might call “scary” picture books: the art is gorgeous but haunting, and the tales include the bits about dancing in red hot shoes until dead or wolves’ stomachs being opened by honest woodsmen. I came across a hardback copy of…
![Finding Motivation: Autonomy in [Home] School and [House] Work](https://simplyconvivial.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/autonomy-FB-copy.jpg)
This series was inspired by my reading of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel Pink. What is Autonomy? autonomy, (aw-ton-uh-mee)n. Drive summarizes autonomy as it relates to motivation this way: People need autonomy over task (what they do), time (when they do it), team (who they do it with), and technique…
As I reviewed on Friday, In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink argues that motivation and satisfaction center on having these three operators in our lives: It turns out that even science is now demonstrating that people are not purely economically motivated, yet as Pink puts it, “there’s a gap between…
Back in January I listened to a library audio copy of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink. It was one of those synchronicity books: unaware of the book, Matt had come across the RSA summary and shared it with me and then a day or two later I was browsing…