summer school

We homeschool around here.  Whatever that means.  I can never really put my finger on the best way to describe it.  People often ask us:  do you follow a curriculum?  how many hours a day do your kids do school work?  are you unschoolers?  do you just let your kids run wild?

Yes. Sometimes. 

I read a great article about unschooling in Outside magazine (of all places) this week.  It’s inspiring, at least for those of us who share that particular mindset.  I know homeschooling, and unschooling especially, isn’t for everyone.  We’re not sure it will always be for us either.  But for now it’s working.

Some mornings find us at the table with a project, some math problems, some spelling.  Some mornings find us on the couch reading for hours, drinking tea in our pajamas.  Some mornings find us releasing the overnight-live-trapped mouse and listening (again) to the persuasive argument about why we shouldn’t “snap” trap mice, as we hike back in to breakfast.

This summer there was little in the way of school books.  Instead they were reading the Story of the World and then building the village of Tarak the Nomad whose family was one of the first to leave the nomad lifestyle and become farmers in the Fertile Crescent.

They were hauling chickens from place to place.

They were watching as the Driftless Folk School builds its new home and trying their hand at some of the skills, and hanging out with grown-ups that inspire her to get her knife out and do some carving when she gets home.

They were learning some Native American games at a friend’s birthday party.

And they were building a “set” with stage, lights, curtain and play bill so that they can perform for us.  Often.

And that was just this week.

I’m guessing when you were a kid, your summer was chock full of learning too.  Maybe different from ours, but likely you were outside discovering, trying your hand, figuring out what works and what doesn’t, pushing your boundaries, getting a little scraped up, triumphing, and failing and going back for more.

That’s what summer was for me.  It’s so fun to re-live it (albeit from the sidelines) with them.