10:30 Tuesday Night

It's almost summer. Or maybe it already is summer because the kids have been swimming every day this week. Time for school to wind down? Not for us. We're picking up the pace and buckling down. For some reason we always get more school done in the summer than we do any other time of the year.

The kids have been busy with a new language arts program and a new approach to handwriting. (More on these soon.) Lauren is obsessed with biology. We work in the gardens and she holds out specimens to the girls, "Look! It's a gastropod." Or, "Come see this wood louse!"

I introduced Claire and Faith to long division this afternoon. This evening the children worked on art projects and played with a pile of hand-me-down stuffed animals while I read Great Expectations aloud to them.

At ten I closed the book and after a quick candlelight question, sent the children off to bed. At 10:15 Lauren came to get me so I could correct her science test. She was too excited to wait until tomorrow to see how she did. When I finished working with Lauren, I walked by Claire's bedroom where she was laying on her stomach, math notebook open in front of her. I looked over her shoulder to see that she had created some long division problems for herself and was working on solving them. For my children, it seems that learning is as essential as breathing.

(Lauren reading Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of the World Vol. 3 on a recent sunny morning. Claire and Faith share binoculars to complete a project listed in Jeannie Fulbright's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day.)

Comments

tammi said…

Wow, to know you've instilled that into your kids must be an incredible feeling! That's what I want most for my girls ~ to constantly WANT to learn.

May 6, 2009 at 7:13 AM

jodi said…

As a newbie homeschooler, your post is so encouraging.

And your yard is beautiful! :)

May 6, 2009 at 10:44 PM

Xandra@Heart-of-Service said…

Ummm...doing long division on his own time without the threat of all manner of unpleasantness? Doubtful. But reading? I can't pull him away from the books!

I think it's incredible the way your kids soak up the lessons and then take it step further.

Xandra

May 19, 2009 at 2:40 PM

Unknown said…

your children are inspiring, Kate, and I know it's very much due to good, godly parenting, so it's you two that are the inspiration, really.

oh, and i love the new heading for your blog. simple but classy.

June 1, 2009 at 1:08 PM

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