As anyone familiar with this blog knows, I homeschool my kids. I’m really not a fanatic about homeschooling, in general. It’s something we do for many, many reasons, but I wouldn’t presume to tell other people what they should do. I’m perfectly willing to accept the idea that public schools are the best choice for many families. However, like many homeschoolers, I sometimes find myself … Continue reading There are things I don’t understand
My daughter Michaela is just over 3 years old. It’s funny how quickly you forget what a 3 year old (or 4 year old or 5 year old) is like. The other day she was taking forever to wash her hands after going to the bathroom. When I went in to check on her she was very carefully washing her elbows. “I’m washing my elbows … Continue reading Michaela Rose
Over the last couple of weeks my two boys have tried emailing various people to express their opinions, ask questions or offer suggestions. They wanted to contact Cartoon Network with a suggestion for a storyline for one of their favorite cartoons. Then my 8 year old decided that he wanted to ask Highlights for advice on dealing with his big brother. Just now my 12 … Continue reading Is this normal?
Many moons back, we had our oldest son, and for one year, our younger son enrolled in Montessori schools. When I began homeschooling, the first books I bought were the Teaching Montessori at Home books by Elizabeth Hainstock and Lee Davis. (There is one for preschool and another for grade school. I think I lent my preschool one to someone, but I have no idea who. If I lent it to you, could you let me know? Thanks 🙂 )
Anyhow, as I went through the preschool edition, I was struck by some of the activities. In particular, the ones involving pouring activities hit me as very odd. Continue reading “Spilled Kool-aid and Montessori Education”
One of the joys of having my two daughters is being able to watch Little Bear on Noggin with them. Somehow, I completely missed Little Bear with my sons, which is a shame. It is such a wonderful show – like the classical music of the cartoon world. It’s literature for the preschool set. This was one of the stories I watched with my girls … Continue reading I love Little Bear
This afternoon my 8 year old was annoying me so I suggested that he play his zoo tycoon game on another computer. This is one of those games where you have to set up a business and run it well to make more money to re-invest into the business and grow it, etc. Part of the game format is that if you screw it up, … Continue reading So does this mean they’re going to grow up to be terrorists?
I got to do something today which I had once planned on spending much of my life doing, but never really got the chance to do after getting waylaid by children and life and my own insecurities. I got to take a kid who thinks poetry is boring and meaningless and show them the magic which is present in those short, truncated lines with the … Continue reading There are elves in the fire
So I’m getting ready to take a picture of my kids for our Christmas card. I have them all dressed up and arranged in front of the fireplace. But before I start, I say to my problem child, “Collin, this always takes forever because you do something goofy like make a face and ruin the best picture we get. And then we have to do … Continue reading My son, the pimp
Someone seems to have erased all the cookies on our computer and it took me 2 days to remember my user name and password for blogger – so I’ve had an extra long break from blogging. I’ve had some really big ups and really big downs in the past week and a half. However, dwelling on the ups is almost always better for a gal … Continue reading Ups and downs
I’ll share this sweet photo of little Sophia. Don’t ya just want to eat her up? 🙂 And no, I don’t ever put clothing on my children – we just let them run around naked like monkeys. It’s part of our homeschooling cult religion, you know! ;p J/K Continue reading Since that last picture only took about 5 minutes to load . . .
The Upside Down World 