(The lovely Garfield Park conservatory)
The other day, while I read an exciting book to my daughter, she interrupted to ask me why every book and television show about children always seems to involve them being at school. Then she asked me what school was really like. I figured the first question was rhetorical, but I [...]

[Read more →]

Dear Creativity,
Where did you go? Will you ever come back? And why don’t we understand each other after all of these years?! I miss you. I have a friend who recently has been lamenting the loss of her great love, Routine. I will tell you right off the bat, Creativity, this friend, she does [...]

[Read more →]

(A study in family ears)
Here’s a short chat on the way to the library Saturday. Most of our talks involve body function of a disgusting sort, in case you were wondering.
Son, “Look, a bird’s nest!”
Daughter, “Awwwww. Poor birds lost their nest…”
Mom, “Now we can make bird’s nest soup.”
Dad, ” I was just reading about that. [...]

[Read more →]

(The creation of the Heart of Gold ship is underway here)
“I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it: we must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and [...]

[Read more →]

I am not here today to tell you about a fabulous opportunity for your homeschooler that does not exist. Yes, that’s right, in just a few more weeks, you may or may not have a homeschooler that is about to pass from one seemless non-existent grade level to another seemless non-existent grade level, or, gasp, [...]

[Read more →]

(Isn’t poison ivy pretty?)
“You know it’s afternoon….and the moon is so pale, and all the plants whisper, the lake and the lilies they whisper to me, ‘I am, I am.’”
-Jonathan Richman
It’s afternoon and Li and I both are inexplicably cranky. He and I are almost too old to nap. In 2 weeks, he’ll be [...]

[Read more →]

(We went horseback riding!)
Are your kids divergent thinkers? Do they stray away from simple tasks by making them unnecessarily difficult just for fun? Do they like to think about things from every angle? I’ve been reading about this stuff lately, and a good thing too, because I got a good demonstration of it this past [...]

[Read more →]

Talk to any unschooler and you hear a lot about an informal method of influence over children’s learning called “strewing their paths” I recall being somewhat doubtful that my strong-willed kids would ever fall for something as simple as a well-placed book or puzzle. But, like almost every teaching/learning technique I ever heard, I figured [...]

[Read more →]

It’s Wednesday. Yup. Monday and Tuesday were a little rough somehow. Nothing tragic. Just a series of little ignominies. Yesterday, my car battery sort of bombed out right when it was called upon to usher a bunch of kids to a historical village. My crown fell off of my tooth the day before, revealing some [...]

[Read more →]

It’s just that I’m having trouble figuring out how to put up a photo with this newish program we have…and it’s been three days I’ve been meaning to ask Ken, but those 3 days have been so hectic. And when I thought of NEXT week’s schedule I realized, honey, it’s blog now or never.
So Saturday [...]

[Read more →]