At a time when scores of parents are making a decision about how to educate their children on next year, there is a certain beauty to the marketing of homeschooling as an option. I don’t just mean the corporate marketing; I mean the way that homeschool is marketed as a collective entity—parents, associations, curriculum publishers, […]
The youngest would say occasionally that “time flies on a jet plane.” No truer words have ever been spoken. We are now on our third round of college tours. In fact, we began taking the kids on college tours when they were much smaller; truth be told, they might not have even known entirely what […]
Each year at about this time, I write my heart about some aspect of Black history, given that you don’t see much in the homeschooling community about February as Black History month. This year, I have a particular concern. There is a wave of educational revision that threatens to wipe out much of what we […]
The advice that comes from the head of the urban farm where we volunteer is, “Just keep planting.” There is, of course, a rhythm to understanding season and sun and how each affects plant growth. Yet, his premise is that the weather is so unpredictable here until it becomes difficult to say with certainty what […]
My MIL would often say that any time she delivered a powerful Bible study, the Lord would give her a chance to live it out on her own. I couldn’t help but think on her words after writing my last blog post. #15 of my “30 before 30” list was “write your schedules in pencil, […]
Well, since I wrote last about the power and place of grace, I should show myself some in neglecting my blog for the last couple of weeks. The good news is that I did exactly what I described in the last post: I spent time and gave attention to each of my family members according […]
It is a conversation that I have had a few times during this time of year—moms who are frustrated with struggling, distracted kids. I am convinced that weather can affect the homeschool mindset on any given day just as much as comfort with the task at hand, or a healthy, filling breakfast, or a restful […]
Each month I use my planner to complete a monthly review, an idea I “borrowed” from the iBloom planner team. The review is a great way to take stock of where I am personally and professionally versus where I desire to be. Based upon the original idea, I have four categories: what went well what […]
A dear friend sent a gift with an enclosed note, saying, in part, “God…is holding tightly to this family. You are literally advancing and changing the color of homeschooling. It excites me so much…” I, too, am excited about what I see in the homeschooling community. I am excited that African-American homeschooling families are currently […]
If September was the month to back up a few yards and punt, then October was the month to hang on. Even with a week off, I still feel as if life happened in a blur. Perhaps, in fact, that week off was the problem: it took me out of my routine enough that I […]
There are certain truths that no one tells you about homeschooling. No one tells you, as one example, how much time you will spend wondering if you are doing enough, if you are doing it right, etc… No one tells you, as another example, that without dogged determination to do something different, homeschooling can be […]
September is the month to… Walk out all of the plans I had for school in shoe leather, and to understand what is actually working and what is not. With a few weeks under our collective belts, I can fall out of love with what looked so beautifully simplistic during the summer. It is the […]