Warm spring breezes, Sun beating down.
We travel in a caravan, down winding roads through the countryside.

We pass a school; poor children, trapped inside with their rules and bathroom passes, and cookie cutter education.

We arrive.
It is a beautiful day.
Moms sitting on blankets. No one asks each other, “How did your child do on that spelling test last Friday”? There is laughter and caring and love. A group of women who want the best possible education for their children.

Kids everywhere, splashing in the water, riding boats down the current, finding geodes and creepy crawlies and fish and crawdads.
Squeals of delight coming from all directions. One loses a shoe, one a boat, someone sees a snake. When they are tired they come to throw their cold bodies over mommy, when they are hungry they eat.

After lunch costumes are donned and all a sudden, princesses and knights and magicians and ninjas are everywhere. There is even a chicken and a horse! Imaginations abound and worlds are created. Is there anything more wonderful than children in costumes under a grove of trees?

We reluctantly load tired kids and gear into the car.
Did we turn left here or right?
I don’t remember seeing that silo? Did you see those goats before?
Finally arriving home.
What a magical day.
This is why I homeschool my child.

Nine months ago I decided to homeschool my 2nd grader. This journey has been a strange trip. Like Alice, I feel like we fell into the rabbit hole and have been running around crazy down here ever since.

The choices are endless! What to teach? What curriculum to use? How long each day? Every subject every day? How long for each subject? Do it all before lunch? Take a break every hour? Do I make her sit at the table? In her bedroom? Upside down from the ceiling fan?

Ideas? With the help of what I have quickly discovered are the most creative, intelligent people on earth; homeschool moms; I have lesson plans, books lists, science experiments, plays, math games, lapbooks, notebooks, timelines, nature journals, interactive sites, spelling lists, scavenger hunts, the list is endless!

I have discovered I rock at planning and gathering information. My excel spreadsheets have enough ideas, plans, websites to get us through high school! It is the implementation that needs work. But I am getting there..slowly. As my best friend is so fond of saying, Thank goodness 2nd grade is a review year!î

I have decided we are not a “buy a curriculum and go through it lessonbylesson” kinda girls. So some days we do only math, with jelly beans. Or just planets using amazing videos on Ted.com, or we build fairy houses. We build burrows with blankets like prairie dogs. [Of course ours are complete with tea in china cups and cookies!] We may homeschool under a tree on a blanket with a Little House book, or on the stairs. She makes inventions with Tubers and Zots. She designs a city on Pluto with domes over everything so people can breath. She makes a town out of paper. We try to go an entire day with no electricity or running water like they did during Colonial times. [This is harder than it sounds we quickly found out!]

We are winging it day by day. And I am loving it. It is the best thing I have ever done. And who knows one day, I may even know what I am doing!!! Even Alice eventually made it out!

K&K