After tying up the loose ends of last year, I’ve been more relaxed than ever about intentional learning this summer.  My one big focus has been reading aloud together, and we’re devouring books and building memories.  Here’s a little peek into our summer through pictures: a mix of relaxation, enjoying the special activities of summer, and learning through it all.

We like to visit lighthouses and try to add new ones to our list when possible.  This year we visited Portland Head Light, the oldest Maine Lighthouse (commissioned by George Washington!).

The growing season is short, but we’re enjoying the garden’s bounty.  These delicious raspberries are the reward for dutifully picking Japanese Beetles every day.

We’re using our new kayaks to explore Maine’s lakes, ponds, and streams.  What fun family adventures we’ve had in them, not to mention amazing nature study!

My animal-loving son adores finding “temporary pets” now that I’ve relaxed and learned to say YES.  We keep them a short time, learn a lot about them, then let them go.  This little guy, a gray tree frog, was on our deck one rainy night:

We sailed the ocean blue thanks to generous friends, and saw seals and harbor porpoises!

Camping on the coast is a summer tradition.  My son is the great critter-finder.

Just to be real, this is what the house looks like when we return from our lovely camping trips on the coast:

Shakespeare Under the Stars!  A highlight of the summer, at least for the homeschool mom in me–and how perfect that this year’s performance was Julius Caesar (we just finished studying the Romans).

The one shadow over the summer has been fighting cancer in our furry family member.  I know she’s “just a dog” but we love her so very much, and thankfully her prognosis is pretty good right now.

The days pass so quickly! I’d love to write more about the temporary pets, or how we’ve been enjoying Shakespeare, but between doing all these things and pulling together next year’s plans (which I hope to post in a day or two) there just isn’t time.

Happy August!

Linking up here:

We’re having a blurred end to our third homeschool year.  Our required days and annual testing are behind us, we’ve glided into our relaxed summer school schedule, and during it are finishing up a unit on the Romans and plugging away at the last few math lessons.

Note: For the formerly rigid planner in me, allowing the blending of topics between school year and summer is a sign of great personal growth!

This felt like a transitional year.  We were no longer new homeschoolers, but saw homeschooling as our lifestyle.  On the other hand, year #2 had it’s stresses and I knew we needed to make changes.  I shared the difficulties caused by my over-planning and, after much thinking and reading and scribbling, my new plans.

A couple times in the thick of the year I gave a peek into how those changes looked (here and here), but after enjoying rest and relaxation in the beautiful outdoors of Maine (after a brutal winter in Maine) I’m here to share my full review of the last school year.  You’ve been waiting on pins and needles to read this, right?

Hooray for things that work!

First and foremost, I’ve made great strides in keeping my over-planning in check and remembering that life isn’t about my to-do list–it’s about the people.  Less planning and less computer time in general helped me be a more well-rounded mom, plus me being more content lightens the mood of our home.  Many things rolled along pleasantly:

• Our eclectic style suits us.   This year was filled with more reading and learning together, less me putting on a show.  We read loads of great books, together and independently, for literature, history, science, and just plain enjoyment.
• We continue a small book club with another family.  With just two families it is easy to agree on book choices and we can be very flexible for scheduling.  We wait until everyone is done reading and meet to discuss the book.  Sometimes we watch a movie or have snacks–it’s really up to us what comes to mind!
• Many curriculum choices worked well: Latin For Children and Song School Latin from Classical Academic Press, Teaching Textbooks, and WriteShop. (Links will take you to my reviews on The Curriculum Choice.)
• We had a great year of ancient history using Story of the World as a spine with extra literature selections from the SOTW activity book and All Through The Ages.  We focused on Charlotte Mason style narration with select hands-on projects (a few period crafts, simple costumes for making Greek myth videos, and my favorite–food).  I found our history studies this year simpler and overall very enjoyable.
• We continue our financial and scheduling commitment to music lessons for the value of beautiful music and hard work.
• We enjoyed several special projects through a relaxed science fair and literature fair, and quite a few field trips.  Two notes on field trips: I’ve realized we have to schedule them ourselves if we want them to happen, and not to be afraid to try a place that might be unusual for field trips.  We called a wind farm and they were happy to give us a tour.
• A huge hit in our daily schedule is tea time, a treat for mind and body after focused morning work.  The benefits are numerous: it motivates my children to work hard to be ready for tea time, it is a spot of joy and togetherness that we look forward to, and it is the perfect time to fit in the “extras” of art, music, poetry, and hymns.
• Another scheduling choice worked: rotating science and history.  We used to study a historical time period and science topic at the same time, aiming for two days per week on each.  But due to extracurricular activities or spontaneous family fun, those subjects planned for the afternoon didn’t happen daily.  Focusing on one at a time helped our studies feel more cohesive, so when I would pick up a history read aloud it would be more fresh in their memory.  Plus the changeover between focus topics was refreshing!  CM note: The science of nature study is continuous, like our squirrel or moon study.

And there’s always room for improvement…

There were areas of my plan that needed mid-year changes, and instead of being frustrated I embraced it as the beauty of being an independent homeschooler: I can change what isn’t working.

Needs improvement: I wanted to incorporate Project Based Learning for my middle school daughter, but in typical micro-manager fashion I started out overzealous. I set up a binder with plans for scheduling the projects and requiring paperwork and everything.  Very Good: When I relaxed my daughter did better than I could have planned.  (I’m not saying oversight is bad, and with some students more structure may be necessary.)  She learned skills independently, used her time wisely, and persevered through difficulties.  It’s humbling to see that it wasn’t any great skill on my part, but simply providing her the time and making sure time-wasting activities are not allowed.

Needs improvement: While the weekly checklist a great tool for my middle school daughter, I also tried to add one with my eight-year-old son.  That was silly.  Satisfactory: I gave up on the list and relied on telling him what he needed to do next.  My daughter likes the big picture and the flexibility to do things on different days.  My son just wants to know: what do I need to do right now before I can build with Lego Robotics?  I need to take smaller steps towards independence and keep his personality in mind.  We’ll try a daily list next year.

Needs improvement: Afternoon quiet time is a good thing for my introverted personality, but it fell by the wayside due to busy afternoons.  The other problem as my kids are getting older is that after a day of focused and structured schoolwork they weren’t ready for more structure and quiet.  My son wants to build with Legos, experiment with paper airplanes, wrestle with his dad, or dress up as a spy and sneak around.  My daughter wants the freedom to play piano, type a story, or work on crafts.  Satisfactory: The my-kids-are-older-but-I-still-need-time-alone plan is this: make quiet time for myself by going into my room and shutting the door.  The kids are old enough, so we just need to work on what is a valid interruption (I’m bleeding!) and what can wait (Where’s my mini Nerf gun?).

Needs Improvement:  We changed our morning schedule (again).  Here’s the background: since infancy my daughter has been a late riser (and needs even more sleep in adolescence) and my son an early bird.  I spent too many months forcing my later riser to be ready before she was truly awake while my early riser was hungry waiting for breakfast and losing a couple hours of his most alert time before schoolwork.  Very Good:  I had an a-ha moment: we’re homeschoolers with flexibility, why am I trying to make them start at the same time??  So now my son and I get up early, and (after my coffee) we eat breakfast together and start his work early.  Meanwhile my daughter can wake naturally and enjoy her morning routine, then get rolling on her day.  We come together at tea time, then move into subjects we do together.  My daughter finishes up her independent work after that, while my son enjoys free time.  There’s less herding and hassling, and both children are working at their prime focused time.  Why didn’t I think of this sooner?

The glass is half full…

Before I mention items that I didn’t accomplish as well as I’d hoped, let me say that my mindset has great effect on my overall review of the year.  My mantra: don’t focus on what we didn’t do, celebrate all we did!

• Maybe we didn’t break out art supplies every week, but we did enjoy both unstructured use of art materials and working on art lessons together, along with museum trips.
• I did not regularly incorporate copywork and dictation, but we did enjoy two Shakespeare plays.
• We didn’t memorize hymns, scripture, and poetry like I wanted, but we read and shared a love of all of the above regularly.   In addition, I had purchased a set of hymnals for my daughter, and after thumbing through them playing her favorites, she can recite a surprising number of them.  I’m delighted that these beautiful songs filled with scriptural truth are feeding her soul.  (Another area where less oversight from me accomplished great things…I’m seeing a theme here.)

I encourage you to reflect fully on your school year, but when you feel like making lists of things you didn’t do remember to make a list of all you accomplished and enjoyed!

We’ve made it to the first day of spring–at least according to the calendar.  In Maine we’re accustomed to waiting a little longer for true spring, but this year it seems especially hard.  Possibly because everything outside is still covered in snow.

It has been a cold, blustery, icy, snowy winter.  I know, that’s a lot of adjectives.  This winter is worthy of many words.  Yet I trust that spring is coming.  After all, we enjoyed Maine Maple Sunday, a spring ritual.

And the goldfinches are losing their dull winter color for vibrant yellow.  What happy little birds!  It’s worth all the seed I buy to see the first spots of bright yellow–the first sign of spring color outside my window.

Despite having to hibernate too often, we’re living a full and engaging life.  Lately my children seem to grow before my very eyes, and I’m trying to soak them in and enjoy them.  Many days I fail and go to bed frustrated with the day or myself, but each day is a new beginning.

Here’s a smattering of what we’ve been up to:

Reading

We’ve treasured wonderful read alouds together.  Our favorites this year have been Heidi and The Secret Garden.  I’ve also been reading more books myself (much better to get lost in a book than lose two hours online).  I savored Pride and Prejudice and now I’m delighting in James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small series.  Sometimes I giggle out loud when I’m reading and have to read a section to whoever is nearby.  I’d allowed my personal reading to fall by the wayside far too long.  It’s back on my priority list because I enjoy it and I’m modeling something I want my children to do: read what is lovely and nurture your intellect even when it isn’t a school requirement.

Art

Something about me being more relaxed actually has us accomplishing more.  Does that make any sense?  There seems to be more time for beautiful things like art.  A weekly favorite is Sketch Tuesday from Harmony Fine Arts.  Barb gives a topic, we sketch something related to that topic, and then she makes a slideshow of everyone’s drawings. We usually watch our slideshow during Tea Time.

We’ve also enjoyed the free art videos by posted on the Rainbow Resources blog and made a trip to a fine art museum.  Our highlight was seeing a painting by Renoir.  We couldn’t help but stand close and think how he had stood in front of that very same painting putting on the finishing touches.

Fun

You must break up the winter doldrums with a little fun.  We celebrated our third annual 100th Day of School.  This year I kept it a surprise and the kids were delighted on a Monday morning to see this:

We also celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday by reading old favorites and some still new to us.  We topped it off by reading Bartholomew and the Oobleck and making oobleck.  Messy but oh-so-fun!

Busy Hands

My son has been engaged in building with Lego robotics.  I’m so thankful my budding engineer and technology fanatic has a daddy who understands and enjoys working with him.

My daughter crochets like crazy! It’s the first craft she’s taken up that I know nothing about.  She and I learned to knit together, but it didn’t spark her interest like crochet.  I’m thrilled with her independence.  My mom and my friend Tina (thank you, ladies!) are available for occasional consult, but otherwise she is using books and online videos.  I use Pinterest and browser bookmarks of reliable websites with embedded videos as a safe way for her to browse and find instructional videos and patterns.

Homeschool Mom Inspiration

Have you visited Sarah at Amongst Lovely Things?  Her series on Teaching from a State of Rest shares great thoughts (as does her blog in general) on cultivating the souls of your entire family and enjoying your homeschool life.  I’m also working through the resources on her Listen Up! page where she links to audio lectures and videos.  Those are turning my cold winter-time dog walks into a mini homeschool convention!  My favorites so far are: Teaching Boys and Other Kids Who Would Rather Be Building Forts All Day, Incorporating Liturgies in the Classroom (absolute favorite), and Memorization and the Soul.

Basically I’m finally REALLY understanding that the most important thing about homeschooling isn’t my organized schedule, my fancy unit planning, what curriculum I choose or what test scores my kids achieve.  The people are the priority.  That includes these little people entrusted to my care to raise to adulthood, and me, too!

I am relieved to be nearing the end of March far more content than last spring.  I continue keeping strong limits on my time in front of my computer, and that helps me be happier, more engaged in relationships around me, and maybe even have a tidier house.  Not that you’re hanging on my every word, but that explains the infrequent posting!  I still enjoy writing when I have something to say and the mental space to write in complete sentences.  Thanks for taking your time to visit.

I’m linking up at these places, where you can find other homeschool bloggers sharing their activities and inspiration:

As homeschoolers we often seem to live a life that’s a bit different from much of society.   Christmas is no exception to the things that can look different in a homeschooler’s home.  Want a peak into our holiday?

Well, some differences are pretty darn easy for our kids to handle, like taking the month of December off from regular schoolwork (even though summer school helps that happen).  During the Christmas season we continued reading, music lessons with daily practice, and turned lots of things like Christmas cards and cooking into math and writing lessons.  Homeschoolers have an annoying habit of turning everything into a lesson!  We cooked and crafted, shopped and wrapped, visited and played, decorated and delighted in the season.

Other differences may make being a homeschooler a little less desirable for my children.  I wondered what my children would think of their presents this year.  We’ve always tried to keep Christmas spending reasonable, but this year we planned on shrinking the to-buy list even further.  Remember, another side effect of homeschooling is that the bulk of my time is spent educating my children versus earning an income.  Besides that, I feel our kids have so much already, and our house is full of all our necessary things, our school things, and the things we love.

Our gift choices were carefully made, with my husband and I working hard to find presents that lead to our children’s time being well spent, not frittered away on mindless entertainment.  When it came down to it they would each open a few presents, and then I had one box for both of them of things for our schoolwork.  Just so you don’t think I’m the meanest mom in the world, I didn’t wrap up their math curriculum or grammar worksheets; these were for extras that they enjoy.

I wanted a creative way to give it to them and prepare them for the contents.  While folding laundry a couple rhyming lines popped into my head, and the beginning of a poem was born.  I jotted down words over the next couple days.  The poem cracked up my kids on Christmas morning, so here it is for your personal enjoyment:

Ode to Homeschooled Children

Homeschooled kids are a sad, sorry bunch,

And not just because they have leftovers for lunch.

Can you imagine a more horrible plight

than living with your teachers day and night?

While regular kids get vacations from school

To spend their days in the sun at the pool,

Watching TV, and playing video games,

Homeschooled kids are still working their brains.

These poor kids just can’t catch a break,

Even on the vacations they take!

When on a family trip they embark

They aren’t headed to an amusement park…

No, historical villages are what’s in store.

And that’s not all–I tell you, there’s more!

For Christmas most kids get the latest in toys,

Gadgets and gizmos and toys that make noise.

But what’s under a homeschooler’s Christmas tree?

Things to build knowledge and spark creativity!

So here’s to the kids educated at home,

To them I dedicate this little poem.

The box was packed with fine arts and science materials:

• Peter and the Wolf from Maestro Classics (a classic story written for Orchestra and Narrator by Sergei Prokofiev)
• Then Sings My Soul (a book that shares the stories behind famous hymns)
• The Kid’s Book of Weather Forecasting (with instructions to build a weather station and make predictions)
• The Hand Book from Klutz (complete with a hand model that should intrigue my two musicians)

The bonus of all this: they enjoyed unwrapping the box, and presenting the items this way reinforces the special gift that education is.  Not to mention it will give us some fun new things to add in when we jump back into full time school after a long break.  Maybe it will prevent the winter doldrums in the cold, dark days of January and February!

Are you interested in the other gifts that passed our “time well spent” test?

Favorites for my eleven year old daughter:

• Klutz Lettering and Cartooning for Kids books because she enjoys adding artistic flourishes and cartoons to illustrate her notebook pages for school
• Sculpey in gold and silver because she makes accessories for her Victorian dollhouse with this clay that hardens after baking

My eight year old son received several well-loved items.

• He enjoyed a unit we did on owls that included field trip and pellet dissection, so he was delighted to receive a realistic Great Horned Owl stuffed animal and The Book of North American Owls.
• He has an ongoing fascination with military history, so an Eyewitness World War II book provides hours of page-flipping fascination.
• His stocking was filled with scientific gadgets: a prism, a jeweler’s loupe (great nature study tool!), a pocket microscope, and his favorite, an infrared temperature gun.  He’s been checking the temperature of EVERYTHING with this tool, and even experimenting with lights on and off, heat from friction, drafty doors, and on and on.

The best part is how our extended family is on the same page at this point!  My kids received wonderful educational gifts like a subscription to Cricket magazine, multiple science kits (Smithsonian’s Glow in the Dark Volcano, Potato Chip Science and Pop Bottle Science) and even our very own Lego Robotics kit!

The good news is that my kids both deemed this “the best Christmas ever.” 

Now we settle into the post-Christmas winter season as a homeschooling family.  We have new things to build our knowledge and spark creativity during cold winter days.  Maine has been challenged by the effects of an ice storm all week, and another storm and more frigid temperatures are on the way.

But that’s okay, we’ll be tucked inside by the fire, learning and living together!

Thank you to these wonderful hostesses. Be sure to hop over and see how other homeschoolers spend their Christmas holiday.

It’s about time I gave an update on how our homeschool year is going!  Last spring I was feeling overworked and a tad burnt out.  I wasn’t thinking of quitting, but I also wasn’t willing to go forward as is.  I was always planning, online researching or writing, making lists I could never complete…basically trying to squeeze too much out of every day, sleeping less and wearing myself out mentally and emotionally.

I spent most of the summer reading and thinking, writing down my thoughts, praying, talking to my husband and just being with my family.  We read and camped and had fun.  I felt my tightened nerves loosen up.  How silly that I’d gotten so wound up that I lost sight of my purpose.  We brought our kids home for a better lifestyle–not a stressed out mama.

I read books by Ruth Beechick and Sally Clarkson.  I made plans, but not too many.  I wrote goals about what really mattered.  My plans were much more focused on overall development and education and far less on what specific topics we would cover.

Probably the biggest change was my mindset.  It’s not about planning the perfect day, unit or year, or how much I check off my list.  It’s about our relationships with each other and our relationship with learning.  I’ve endeavored to keep this simple checklist at the forefront:

• Are we relating well to each other?
• Did we learn and spend our time well today?

So, whether we’re working at curriculum or focused studies I’ve prepared, taking a field trip to experience the real world, or enjoying a hike to soak in nature’s beauty–it’s all good.  At the end of the day I don’t stress over what we didn’t get done, I just smile over what we did.

I find my relaxation has opened the door to several benefits:

1. We’ve enjoyed more real world learning through field trips, which had been one of the positives of homeschooling I was excited about when we started.  We’ve visited a wind power facility, went out with Diver Ed, toured our state governor’s mansion, and got up close and personal with a Barred Owl.
2. My husband feels welcome to step in and run with ideas he has for the kids–which has led to some incredible computer programing instruction.
3. I see my kids both taking more initiative in learning.  From writing stories to setting up paper airplane experiments, they’re exploring and creating more on their own.
4. We have stored up some tremendous family memories spending time together doing everything from hiking new trails to taking off a school morning to go out for breakfast.

What has my life as a homeschool mom been like?  I’ve spent less time planning and been on my computer a lot less.  I’ve read more and kept our home a bit tidier.  I’ve realized I don’t need to be looking online for the perfect activity to go with our Egypt study…I need to look my son in the eyes when he’s telling me about his Lego creation.  I don’t need to be choosing the perfect wording for a blog post…I need to be choosing ways to connect with my adolescent daughter.

I’m content in what feels like a homeschool sweet spot.  Adjustments will be necessary as my children grow and change, but I’m hoping I can stay focused on not becoming the unhappy, overworked homeschool mom.  Just in case I need a reminder of what really matters, I’m saving inspiring posts on my pep-talk pinterest board.

How do you regain focus when you find you’re busy all day but not focused on what matters?

Thank you to the wonderful hostesses with fun link-ups on Fridays–click over to see what other homeschoolers are doing.

Before I started actually homeschooling I had dreamy visions of how it would go.  I shared now slightly humorous visions and the reality of homeschooling.  So if it isn’t the perfect scenario I envisioned, why do I still homeschool?  Because the good outweighs the bad by a ton.

The basic benefits I hoped for when researching homeschooling have held true: lots of family time together and a tailored education for both my children.  But there are even more benefits than I had anticipated.  It’s not to say that I hadn’t thought of some of these, but the degree of delightfulness had been unexpected.

#1. I hadn’t realized the full impact of not only lots of time together but all this shared learning.

I was hoping homeschooling would strengthen our family bonds, but it has had an unbelievable affect on our family culture.  We’re always reminding each other of funny stories or using quotes from books we’ve read together.  So many more of our memories are shared memories.  I especially see this having a great impact on the relationship between my kids since we read aloud and study many subjects together.  Being a boyish boy and girly girl three years apart, learning together gives them helpful things in common:  often they spend free time reenacting a wagon train, a story about Cleopatra, or something else we’ve been studying.

#2. I know what my kids have been learning.

When my daughter was in school I got the report of the day by looking over her papers or whatever she happened to remember to tell me (which was often more about the social aspects).  But as their homeschool teacher I know what they’ve been studying.  I can tie prior knowledge into something else we’re doing.  When we’re at a lighthouse and the man starts talking about the remains of a fort that was once occupied by the British I can tie that in to things we’ve studied!

#3. The flexibility is amazing!

Okay, I did look forward to the flexibility of homeschooling before we started, but the number of ways in which it benefits us surprised me.  My early riser does his best focused schoolwork early, so we can schedule his work accordingly.  If it’s hot we get outside early in the day, not take recess at 12:30 even if it’s 80 degrees then.  We can hike on a nice Thursday and finish schoolwork on a rainy Saturday.  We can go places when they aren’t as busy.  If any or all of us is just having one of those tough days we can take a break and reboot.  The kids have more time with their Dad (who works irregular hours) and even their grandparents.  We just can be flexible (and often still learning!) while we’re sick and not worry about how soon I can send them back to school.

#4. My kids are being better prepared for taking care of themselves and a home.

My kids are learning and doing more household chores because they are home a lot.  (That isn’t to say that my home is cleaner than before homeschooling because, well, we’re home a lot and make a lot of messes!)  But instead of rushing off in the morning and returning in the evening to see a stocked fridge and laundered clothes in a tidy house, they are there all day.  They run to the store with me, we fold clothes together while reading, and we all participate in household chores.  They are seeing the responsibilities of adults and learning to do them right alongside me.

#5. There’s less pressure to keep up with a culture that, quite honestly, has its priorities messed up.

My kids don’t beg to watch the latest television show or video game.  There is less “got to have it” pressure because they aren’t trying to fit in with peer groups that they have to relate to for hours each day.  Other than this being helpful for our pocketbook, I find it lets the real purpose of the day shine: LEARNING!  Working at home the real focus is what we’re studying, not the social pressures of the class or distractions from all the other stuff that goes with a group of same age kids in a room with one teacher.  We don’t have to sign up for every extracurricular activity and be running on all our evenings and weekends.  I don’t have to spend money on the lists of requested items from the school, or become a fundraiser or peddler of goods to raise funds for field trips.  I don’t drop my kids off to then volunteer my time photocopying or keeping order in the lunchroom.

#6 We’re learning to dare to be different.

I still remember the first few months of telling people we were  going to homeschool.  The good news is, it’s easier after two years.  We’ve all learned to be more comfortable being different and that can be a very good thing.  Very often the right thing isn’t the popular thing, so this is a life skill that will help my kids make good choices down the road.

#7. We have more time to focus on the seasons and holidays.

This one may seem less serious, but it’s no less enjoyable!  We structure our school year so we can focus on Christmas for all of December.  We celebrate family rituals that bond us together and help us remember the reason for the season.  Other than Christmas we also can appreciate the flow of the seasons from the cozy days of winter reading by the fire, to the first time we feel real warmth from the sun in spring.  We can continuing our learning while still enjoying Maine’s short but glorious summer.  Fall is my favorite season, and I am happy each year that we enjoy all the crisp beauty together, instead of jumping back in to running around and spending hours apart from each other.

#8. My life is enriched beyond measure as I learn alongside them.

I was one of those students who knew what I needed to do to get good grades, but couldn’t wait to be done college so I could stop all this studying (especially when I knew I would forget things right after the test).  I am so very lucky that I get to learn all the good things I missed and I feel I’ve discovered my love of learning.  I love enjoying wonderful books that I missed along the way and getting a chance to reread old favorites.  But then there’s nature study, and realizing how much wonder I was simply walking by on a daily basis.  Meeting the great masters of art and music and appreciating the beauty of what they created is a new joy for me.  I’ve become engrossed in our history studies, even though it was one of my least favorite subjects in school (because I couldn’t remember names and dates).

#9. I am there for deep conversations.

You can’t always plan heart-to-hearts.  Being together a lot means I’m there when the mood strikes or the topic arises that leads to a weighty discussion.  Topics that get us talking come up during Bible reading, watching the news, studying history, reading great books…or sometimes just making lunch or walking around the neighborhood.  Having an abundance of time together and interacting together much of that time often puts me in the right place at the right time to connect with my children on important issues.

#10. I’m growing as a person.

I’ve shared about the lessons I’m learning through homeschooling.  Being together and working together all the time is like sandpaper on all our rough edges.  I’m hoping it’s like a rock tumbler and we’ll all come out more beautiful in the end.

 Hop over to iHomeschool network to read more unexpected benefits to homeschooling. Every Tuesday for the next 10 weeks I’ll be participating with the other bloggers of iHN in a blog hop of top ten lists.

This blog hop series was inspired by Angie of Many Little Blessings where you’re welcome to link up, too!