summertime homeschooling

I always expect the summer to have more free time involved with it and end up exhausted after running from dawn until far after sunset. The days are long and full with the kids participating in reading clubs, classes, and swimming all over the place on top of the regular school stuff. Yes, we are one of those families that schools in the summer.

Why would I do this terrible thing to my kids, you ask? Well, we do take time off but it is in the spring and fall that the weather is nice enough to be outside or road trip. We do tend to spend a lot of time outside on our land working and our "vacation" time is usually spent mostly here doing just that. Fortunately, there are a number of nearby beautiful places to hike and check out the local flora and fauna. There are also many local festivals in the spring and a few in the fall. All in all, the kids end up taking about 3 months off a year when added all up. Generally, there formal book-oriented education is only 2-3 hours a day anyway.

I know that my kids live in a kind of bubble because I overheard my daughter telling another adult that she liked television in the winter better than now because she got to watch more shows. I laugh because she was referring to early spring (pruning and planting time) when I allow the kids to watch several hours of PBS a day if they want. They also spend a considerable amount of time helping outside but it is chilly and their attention spans and stamina are obviously lower than an adult's. Tony and I are generally pretty busy and yet I find myself feeling guilty that they are exposed to so much television, albeit educational. Then Elder will wander out and tell me some fact about storms or salamanders and I don't feel so bad. Lily will run out and show me the latest fashion she has sewn up for her stuffed animal and I realize that they are getting time to apply things that they are taught in "class". Here it is mid-July and I am already waiting for the late Fall harvest season so that we can put down manure on the gardens, mulch the perenials and take a much awaited rest before it starts all over again.

And so now, I am off to find the safety glasses for the kids to wear while learning how to use the palm sander for the furniture we are repainting tomorrow and then we will chop veggies for our stirfry dinner and then we will feed goats and walk dogs and then................