What is education? I love to collect quotes on what education means. Definitions are important, because without them we can be using the same word but with entirely different understandings of what we’re talking about. Without understanding what it is we’re trying to do each and every day with our children, we flounder and fall…
Years ago, when my third born was just a baby, I hated housework. I was torn between wanting to be a good, competent homemaker and thinking that the state of my bedroom or the kitchen wasn’t a big deal. I could get meals on the table, keep things stocked, and complete a project just fine….
We’ve seen them. The child screaming, red-faced at the park, oblivious to parental admonitions. The toddler rocking in the cart, yelling because he didn’t get his way. We sigh and shake our heads as we move along our way. Until it’s us and our children. My toddlers rarely threw real tantrums, but when they have,…
An organized attitude, scholé, and ordo amoris are all tightly connected, at least in my mind. The threads are coming together in the book Reordered Love, Reordered Lives: Learning the Deep Meaning of Happiness which I purchased and began chiefly on the strength of the title. Of course I checked out the author and a…
Dr. Perrin, when he speaks of scholé, often uses the story of Mary and Martha to illustrate. It is easy to become the Martha – bustling and busy and distracted. More than that, she’s easily irritated, so caught up in her production and housework that she almost missed the point. That hits home. Sarah Mackenzie,…
The backstory I was a child who hated making my bed and got away with leaving it undone as often as I could manage. I hated pointless work, and what is more pointless than making a bed you’re just going to get in and mess up again at the end of the day? Yes, this…
Homeschooling is a game that has to be played with the long view. When a day goes well, it’s tempting to rejoice in the assumption that we obviously got everything right and finally have a plan that works. Now, we think, every day will now go swimmingly, because clearly our good plan is in place….
We’ve been using checklists in our homeschool lifestyle for about 3 years now, since my oldest was 9 and my second-born was 7. Through much trial and error, I’ve learned some rules of thumb for teaching kids to use checklists. Because I’ve received several questions about my kids’ checklists, I thought I’d share what I…
It’s February. Like clockwork homeschool moms hit burn out mode this time of year. Yes, it might be cloudy skies, lack of sleep, or holiday sugar-binges catching up with us, but if it’s a serious case – a break-the-pencils, I-quit sort of case – we will probably need to dig a little deeper. You know I’ve…
I probably wouldn’t have even written anything about Crystal Paine’s Say Goodbye to Survival Mode: 9 Simple Strategies to Stress Less, Sleep More, and Restore Your Passion for Life, except that several of you said you wanted to hear what I thought when I was done. There weren’t too many quotables to pull out, and…