Learning that Lasts
With all the talk of kids and early learning it’s a relief to find out, in my mid-thirties, that learning doesn’t end when we reach the end of school. In fact, I would be willing to bet that I’ve learned more in my years out of school, than in my desk wearing knee high socks.
As an adult and homeschool mama, learning again through a child’s eyes, I’ve discovered, among many other things, that:
- I can paint
- I enjoy hiking in the woods
- I can be good at math
- I love learning about birds
- Great children’s book are still great when the reader is no longer a child
- And history is one of my favorite subjects (this one makes my husband particularly excited)
I hope my kids actually learn plenty during their school years, but I also hope they get these joyful moments of discovery for the rest of their lives.
I overheard this quote last night as my husband watched a documentary about the historian, David McCullough. He’s speaking about my epiphany with history (even if he didn’t know it at the time).
“History is not about dates, and quotes, and obscure provisos. History is about life, about change, about consequences, cause and effect. It’s about the mystery of human nature, the mystery of time. And it isn’t just about politics, and the military, and social issues, which is almost always the way it’s taught. It’s about music, and poetry, and drama, and science, and medicine, and money, and love.”
The Softer Side of Starting back to School
I don’t know about you, but I can only describe December as a whirlwind month on a sugar high. By the day after Christmas my brain turned itself off in an act of self-preservation in order to recharge from the planning involved in the previous month.
Planning school, planning advent, planning presents, planning a service project, planning food- What a relief to find a week of nothing to plan and no lists to make. I put off anything related to planning (school, groceries, other life resposibilites) until the very last day or two of my husband’s generous vacation time.
And then when the planning brain did turn itself back on again, fully charged, my synapses and fingers were clicking on endless great ideas-a hymn study over at Practical Pages, Composer Studies from Harmony Arts Mom, music lessons for the kids from the husband, new science curriculum that hadn’t been cracked open this year, grammar for the 11 year old…
With the planning brain now on overload and as the cut-off to vacation life drew closer, I considered post-poning school an extra few days or maybe a week (this is a perk to homeschooling, I can add on extra days at the end of the year to make it right). But experience has shown me that we didn’t need an extra week to flounder about (the kids) and feel grumpy about responsibilities(me). It would take us down a road of fighting and general discontent which can aptly be titled- Chaos.
Thankfully, around monday evening I remembered The Soft Start. I reminded myself that if I added all of my ideas into our first week back there might be a few of us no longer here by the end of the week (namely me, I’d probably be driving to the beach).
So I arranged my list by what I wanted to start with the first week, add in the second week, third, and by the end of the fourth all of my hopeful plans would be included in the schedule.
An example of what this might look like:
This Week:
- Bible
- Math
- Reading
- History
Next week
- All of the above plus,
- Science
- Hymn Study
- Art
Third week:
- Composer study
- Music Lessons with Dad
- Flesh out weekly schedule
You’re soft start might look slower or faster than the example above based on the ages and numbers of your children, family illness or other extenuating circumstances.
The Soft Start is about feeling successful, for everyone. The entire family gets to feel successful in getting back into a normal schedule, with a lighter load of academics in the first week, and ease into the realization that we actually like normal life quite a lot.
This Soft Start was actually even slower because, on monday, when we planned to take down the christmas decorations, we went out for hot chocolate instead and then took a nap. Which means today we took down the decorations and brought order to the school room and peace to my mind.
You might not need a slow start. If you have older children, who are quite capable of managing their work, and no little ones to call out for snacks and books and people to play with them, than I bet you can hit the week running.
But if you’re life this past week, minus school, has already felt full with working through sibling fights, accepting the fate of the grocery store, looking around at potential chores in every room, and finding one quiet moment to kiss your husband, and you’re wondering how in the world your going to start schooling multiple children in multiple grades, then consider the slow method.
And when you do start, start with the most important thing, the thing your kids(and you) need more than anything else, start with the Word of God, first thing in the morning, right at the table with your pancakes and cereal. Then you’ve tasted success before you’ve even finished breakfast.
The Partly Successful Poetry Lesson
I stare at my daughter, mortified that the source of her crying came from my own hands.
She has just finished part three of her poetry assignment. Monday was free-writing, Tuesday she created a poem from her free-write, and today is the big “R”, revision.
Until today they have done some light revision but we’ve never used the “R” word. Last week they heard an author speak about his writing process and how his book went through five drafts before it become a published book. He shared that the process was hard on him but he had no doubt that the final draft was a much better book than his first draft.
So I couldn’t hide the “R” word anymore. But I tried to put the right spin on it.
I even started with an inspiring moment, designed to reveal that revision didn’t equal “wrong”. Based on the idea from Georgia Heard’s book The Revision Toolbox”, I brought out a geode.
“The first draft is like this geode. You definitely have something there. It’s a solid idea.”
And then I dramatically got out a hammer and we broke that small rock open to find the glimmering beauty inside.
“This is what happens when we go back to our first draft and crack open the first ideas to find the gems inside by looking at word choices, sharpening images, losing extra words. It’s not that the first draft is wrong or bad, this is just the next step to finding your poem or story.”
Inspiring, right?
I set the two halves of the geode on the desk and handed them some questions to help them think over their poem. And left the room.
Which brings us back to the sobbing child in the chair beside me.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“My poem’s not poetical anymore!” cried my 9 year old.
“What?”
“I loved my poem yesterday,” racks of sobs and broken breath continue, “but now that I’ve read those questions I don’t think my my poem’s even a poem anymore! I hate my poem,” the sobbing turns into a heavy slump upon the table.
This is when teaching stinks. All of my teaching is trial and error, which means sometimes I get it so right and sometimes I have a day like this one. I don’t mind making mistakes, but I don’t like to do them at the cost of my daughter’s creative process.
I warned them when I handed out the questions.
“I’m figuring out how to teach this to you as we go. This step of working on your poem might work great or one of you may love it or everyone may hate it. We’re just going to have to try it.”
Well, the almost eleven year old (who’s also pretty relaxed about her creative process) worked through the questions and declared, “This is fun, these questions are great, they helped a lot.”
You already know how it turned out for the other one-who, by the way, is two years younger. When the author last week said that in art, as well, the first draft is never the best, Jellybean declared he was wrong(privately, to me, later, thankfully).
“My first tries in art are always my best,” she explained.
Is it just age, is it also personality? She had written five pages of a poem and then decided it was no longer a poem!
Sure I should have seen that one coming. I should have handed her older sister the paper with questions for her poem, and allowed the younger to recite a beautiful rendition of her five page poem and call her poem done-but I didn’t. Because sometimes it’s trial and error.
The learning curve for this teacher is deep and wide, how is it for you? Have you had successes so far this year, or many nearly successful moments?
When Push Comes to Shove
(The assignment discussed in this post is from A Crow Doesn’t Need a Shadow: A Guide to Writing Poetry from Nature by Lorraine Ferra.)
One of the challenges of being the teacher is facing the sigh. The low groan. The roll of the eyes, when I announce a certain subject or assignment.
Along similar lines, it’s also difficult to watch a child struggle with a lesson and be the teacher who has to keep her on the road through the hard stuff.
By 9:30 our day had ricocheted way off track from our original school plan, punted by outside circumstances with my Dad that couldn’t be avoided. After lunch I gathered the grumpy, out-of-sorts crew (myself included) together to get started with school.
The atmosphere was not ripe for a poetry lesson. My ten year olds face looked so glum her frown was sliding off her chin like unset jello.
“We’re going to do a poem today about the weather.” I pointed to window, indicating the autumn day taking place outside.
A heave of the shoulders and then through tight teeth, “Fine.”
“First you’re going to make a list of action verbs associated with people.”
“What do you even mean!”
“Not common verbs, pick interesting ones like ‘swallow’ and ‘erase’.” Picture a lot of enthusiasm in my voice, I was attempting to transfer it with the right intonation.
“Then make another list of verbs associated with animals-”
“-I thought this was a poem about the weather!!” my 9 year old cried out, exasperated.
“It is. Just wait and see. Think of verbs like ‘pounce’ and ‘perch’.”
“It sounds hard,” my ten year old mumbled down to the floor.
Reader, this is is when it gets hard for me. I forget that struggle isn’t a thing to be avoided and the mama in me wants to do something to ease it. Especially when I’m the source of the frustration! But I knew they could get this assignment.
“You don’t have to use all of the verbs but use some of them to write a poem about the fall weather. Here’s an example by an 8 year old-
Wind
Wind nibbles
on the walls of the buildings.
When it hunts
in the forest it rubs its chin
on the trees
and wipes its mouth
on their leaves.
There was a slight lift in the frowns. I grabbed at the moment.
“Grab a sweatshirt and your notebooks and go outside.”
Reality set in, they were really going to have to do this assignment.
The cheer in my voice rose hoping to cajole their spirits up and out of the dumps.
“Here put on Daddy’s warm sweatshirt. You put on your big sister’s,” and then I added lightly, ”Guess we better have some hot chocolate in a little while since it’s cold out today.”
I admit it, that last bit was pure bribery coated in chocolate.
Turning to math with my six year old, I occassionally glanced at the girls sitting on the driveway with their notebooks.
Twenty minutes later we heard someone burst through the side door and then my ten year old appeared. Cheeks the color of gala apples, her dad’s sweatshirt hanging to her knees, and excitement buzzing around her entire body she said, “I’m finished!”
She waited. She wanted me to ask to hear the poem.
“Can I hear it?”
“Okay.”
Dramatic Pause. A rush of breath-
Sometimes the wind
is a message bearer, whispering
to the trees news of what
I do know know.
But some days the wind
is a wild cat, pouncing
on leaves and dragging
them to its lair.
Some mornings when I wake up,
the wind flies through the window
and burrows under my covers, driving
me out of bed and into my clothes.
The wind is its own person,
changing each day.
To me
the wind is alive.
She’d had that moment. That moment, determined to fail and yet looking at the wind, and giving it living breath on her page, she found out that with her own words the wind really was alive.
I tumbled into adulthood afraid of things that were hard. I didn’t want to try anything new, worried that it might take effort or might end in failure. It’s a fine line to walk as mom and teacher but when I get it just right between the “yes go do it” and the “let’s celebrate with hot chocolate” the results are worth the earlier struggle. I can see in the child a little more confidence and little less fear of the next challenge.
The Messy School Plan
I’m joining with some other homeschool moms to share a confession about real homeschool life. It’s not always like we plan for in our heads,full of projects and organized school time….
I sit down beside my Dad, letting my bag of school books settle on the floor beside my seat.
It’s not one of his good days. Actually he hasn’t had what I would call a good day in a very long time.
I lean forward and look into his eyes. ”Hi, Dad.”
He stares back at me but doesn’t say anything.
“I love you Dad. I’ve missed you, it’s really good to see you.”
He continues to stare at me, eyes the color of the turbulent green sea.
I talk to him about deep sea fishing, the book I just read, the kids trip to florida. But my one-sided conversation can’t sustain itself forever, so I get out the computer and show him pictures of the kids. The cloudy eyes stare and he moves his hand to tap the computer.
I settle back in the chair and get out my school books.
Planning school is challenging, often overwhelming at the beginning of the year. But there’s another side, too. When the schedule, book lists, and ideas gather into a nice tidy braid, it’s very satisfying, not at all like what I’m doing with my Dad. I can control what we do, I can see the outcome, I can make lists of what we’ll accomplish in convincing black and white. School planning seems very alluring, a way to distance myself a bit from the darker waters in my heart.
I open my brand-new, crisp planner, blank with possibilties. But other, not so tidy thoughts, interrupt.
My Dad’s presence, the tubes and the small shared room press me and I can’t help but realize I’m trying to look at my Dad’s stuggle and our homeschooling journey as if they’re on two seperate pieces of paper. But that’s not the truth of our life or even my goal, for that matter.
After six years, homeschooling is no longer defined as the portion of our day assigned to academic study. It’s seeped into the ebb and flow. We read about history and science to know the God who made the world and us. We learn when the baby is sleeping or when we’re all schlepping around a big lake. We study art together, but we also do art when we feel like doing it. Learning follows us when we’re in our school room or out of it, and the tide and waves shift when we’re having a baby or when my Dad’s in the hospital for four months.
The learning within our home and family feels very connected to our actual world, not a school world before “real life” begins.
It’s taken time to get here.
But still I forget.
And then I remember where I’m sitting and who I’m sitting next too with my bag full of what we need to learn.
And then I remind myself. Again.
What’s happening with my Dad is part of what we’re learning.
It’s a messy part that doesn’t look great in my planner. But I’m trying to grow kids who are engaged in a world bigger than themselves, and with a God bigger than my own well-typed plans.
It was two school years ago that my Dad went into the hospital for four months. As his only family in the same town, we needed to be there for him in some way every day. School flowed, trickled, and reached a full stop. I worried about what the neighbors would think when they saw the kids outside in the middle of the day. I worried about our families and whether they would accuse us of neglecting our children’s education. But mostly I longed for us to live in a different era.
I thought of a time when families took care of the stuff of life first-planting, sowing, baking, caring for aging family, and the academic studies came along when the plants weren’t growing or when mom wasn’t busy making the meal for the day.
Last year a friend called and reminded me, “They will look back and remember that you cared for your Dad when he needed it.”
What does this really mean for me, books in one hand, the slow end of life happening on the other? It means we might hear difficult news this week about my Dad. I might not have a year long plan fully conceived with a lovely table set for the first day, a special breakfast, and a freshly painted schoolroom (I really want that new paint). It means I have to be careful about not taking refuge from what’s really happening inside the very predictable and safe world of planning. I might have to accept messy planning that happens throughout the year instead of now (if I were really honest, all of my before school planning just makes me feel good, I never adhere to any of the schedules I make anyway).
We need to start where we already are in our lives and see how our formal learning can ebb and flow with the plans the Lord has already put into place. Or we might miss the best lessons, which are the ones not planned by me.
Like all things I’ve learned on this journey, I’m going to need to tell myself again and again.
To read other personal stories of homeschool moms, head over to Sunflower House to see a full list of blog posts.
Writing Beyond the Rules-Thornton Burgess
I hope you’ve already read some of this author’s work. If not, let me introduce you to a new friend who will bring nature into your home through stories. Thornton Burgess is known in a lot of homeschool circles, most often for his books The Burgess Book of Birds, The Burgess Book of Animals, and the Burgess Book of the Seashore. Though my eight year old most enjoys his thin chapter books such The Adventures of Reddy Fox.
For my own enjoyment I’ve been reading his autobiography, Now I Remember. I plan on marking some passages to read aloud to the kids this year, a bit of an author study as we read the Burgess Book of Animals to compliment our animal study this year.
The passage I want to share with you is less about nature, and more about his writing process.
“Do I make an outline? As I’ve already stated, I do not…
In school I was taught that in writing a story I should first make an outline, a plan or a plot, developing this as I went along. A good story must have a good plot preceding the writing of it. I agree with this all but the “preceding”. When I write a story it has a plot, afterward, not before. Of course I am wrong, but I am right-for me…
I gather that to the average writer a good preliminary plot is what a blueprint is to a builder or engineer. To me it is but a stumbling block. It gets in my way….
One of my greatest disappointments in life was to forego a college education. With my mother depending on me I had to go to work instead of college. Now, looking back, I can see that had a gone to college I might have fallen under the influence of professors who would have changed my whole train of thought, leading me to conform to their accepted and unquestionably correct rules governing self-expresssion and good writing. Thus might have been destroyed, or been sidetracked, such originality as I possess. As it was I was forced to work out my own salvation in a way. In doing so I developed a style peculiarly my own.”
(chapter 24, Now I Remember)
His thoughts spur on my efforts to release the voice of my children through the written word. I don’t have the way fully realized, but I don’t think I’m going to find it in a packaged Language Arts or Writing Curriculum-even though those clear steps seem so satisfying. If I hold off on workbooks and mechanics, and instead I remain in this place of discovery, a little bit of uncertainty (Burgess didn’t know how his story would end), I’m hoping they’ll end up as writers who write to communicate, rules optional.
So my plan? We’ll write. Often. It’s the same idea if you want to learn to draw-sketch everyday. Most people can learn to follow five steps to draw a proper bird, but not everyone will discover his or her own style:
Learning Near a Big City
I grew up in a city but my heart belonged to the beach on the edge of the city.
I moved to another city for college and another city for marriage and it’s no New York, but it’s a great city and we love it.
One of our favorite questions to ask each other is “Do you want to live in the city or the country?”
None of us can answer with a distinct yes or no.
I love the idea of wide open spaces for my children to roam, of a slower life, of a closer relationship with nature.
I also love my library, my coffee shop, a short drive to the grocery store, and a life without wildlife that gets too friendly.
No matter how we might answer the question in the hypothetical, our trip to Chicago this past week had me mentally planning school as if all of the great places we visited were just around the corner.
First we visited Oak Park, and took a walk around the neighborhood, picking out our “new” house. A lot of the houses looked prime for secret crawl spaces and hidden rooms. The neighborhood is also home to the studio of Frank Lloyd Wright and many houses designed by him can be found nearby. We dragged our hot and sweaty selves into our friend’s favorite bookstore. I’ve always dreamed of walking from our house to a coffee shop, park, and library. (That’s one point for the city side of the question).
For the rest of the week we parked ourselves in Batavia, an hour out of Chicago and surrounded by great little towns and more than we could do in our short time (add 4 kids and two tired parents).
We were all impressed with the Dupage Children’s Museum. If you’ve been to a children’s museum, you tasted a piece of this three story exploratorium. Famous art lined the walls with correalating activities in color, sound, and structure. In my head I planned our return trips. First we’d study color and shadows and head back to that section next time. Then we’d study construction, a unit on wood and tools and head back to the construction exhibit. Then we’d come back and just explore the section with giant tools to build marble runs. If we lived there.
The next day we took the train to the Field Museum.
The Museum blew us all away and we didn’t even get to see two of the exhibits because there is so much to see. Oh my, the Underground Adventure where you get to see what’s under the soil as if you’re the size of an ant. Our six year old still sincerely believes he was shrunk to half and inch for thirty minutes of his life!
The egyptians, the native americans, the dinosaurs, the animals, oh my.
My favorite area was the section on North American Birds. Every single bird was represented. Birds we had only read about and now we got to examine them up close. I wanted to get sketch books and come back-every week! If we lived there.
And finally we visited the Aboretium. If you’re familiar with Nashville, this was like Cheekwood hiked up three levels. An amazing children’s section designed to get kids close to nature. A garden maze, and miles of trails. My friend asked me, “If you were a member here, how many times would you visit in the year?” Twice a month, or even better yet, once a week and that would be school for the day.
We’re not pulling up roots and moving out of Nashville, but I do wish we could pull up Nashville and move it atleast four hours closer to Chicago.
Summertime Mama
“Do you school all year round or just the normal school year?”
I pondered this question in those first few years and a older friend said something that’s always stuck and always led me to choose a true summer break.
“My kids have me as teacher mom all through the school year,” she said, “I’m always assigning tasks, telling them something they need to do. During the summer, they need me to just be Mom.”
Her simple explanation continues to resonate.
There was the spring that we had taken many breaks because of a medical issue with my Dad. I felt pressed to “finish” school, to work long into June, to keep going with Math through the summer. After several weeks of schooling in June, I realized we needed to stop. I needed to stop. And not look back at the books until August.
This morning, our second day of summer break, the 3 older kids played Monopoly until the toddler and I showed up for breakfast(around 9). I read aloud during breakfast, they ran off to do their morning chores, and then I surprised them by putting on a video. (Only a homeschool family watches Winged Migration, a documentary, for fun, but we did and the two year old acted out the flight patterns of birds. )
My 8 year old made a wise crack during the movie and couldn’t stop laughing at herself. I watched her, my eyes lingered on her, without thinking of what task I needed to remind her of, and I smiled. We then watched the two year old do acrobatics on the living room chair, and I didn’t have to think once about sending her off with an older sibling so I could do math with the 6 year old.
After a leisurely lunch they headed off to play their marathon monopoly game. As I sat here to begin this blog, I realized that the 3 siblings hadn’t fought once during the game over the last few days. My dark mom side told me that they would fight soon enough, after the luxury of less schedule turned into bored picking and fighting. And then I stopped myself from predicting doom and I remembered my daughter’s laughter from earlier and I thought,
Let’s just take it day by day.
My children need me to have less outside goals and desire just to be with them and delight in them.
So what about math and reading? We have a creative way to incorporate reading into our summer and some math games we’ll play so those multiplication and adding skills don’t get lost in the backyard pool(though monopoly seems to be doing the trick right now!).
What about you? Do you school in the summer? Do you have any secrets for spending time with your children during the school year without always having an agenda or reminder?
Time to Review the School Year-Just Ask Your Kids
We have three official days of school left before the teacher hat goes on the rack for a while and the mom hat leads the way into summer. Of course I’m thinking about the successes and not-so-successes of the year and making notes for our next year, because that’s just how a homeschool mom-brain works. In the midst of my mental review, I came across Jimmie’s post with a list of great questions with which to ply the kids and found exactly what they thought about our learning this year, and what they’re most eager to take on next fall(eager is a strong word, they are eager to go swimming, but they are interested in a few studies after their summer break).
So what did I learn from their questionnaires? (I decided to give the questions in a written format, I knew they would like the feel of their opinions as “official” in print.)
A few things were confirmed:
The 10 year old doesn’t like math or cursive. The eight year old loves both.
That’s been the pattern for years now. It’s not a surprise that they wrote it down in black and white.
History and Art have been a favorite for the whole family this year.
My feelings about history have undergone a radical transformation. I’m sure it’s partially that and the fact that we filled our home with great stories with the help of Truthquest that led both girls to include history under “What should we spend more time studying?”.
Nature has become a new interest(the study of, not just the act of being in it) for all of us. Both girls asked for more nature study.
I’ve already been writing down ideas for nature study units next year, after our wonderful time studying birds this spring, and it’s so encouraging to read their answers and know that I won’t be pulling them into nature study, they’ll be running right along with me.
Both girls really enjoy doing projects and field trips.
After five years of homeschooling(I guess that’s six if I include preschool for my oldest), we’ve run the gamut of hands-on everything, pre-packaged curriculum, unit studies, and trying out Apologia textbooks. I’ve realized that even though I learn best through hands-on activities(and therefore have used hands on as our main learning technique until this year), our history has thrived predominately through reading great books. I might have been tempted to take that new freedom(of not doing a lot projects) into next year and miss the fact that the girls still enjoy games and field trips and “doing it” as the 8 year-old so rightly put it. I need to carry a balance of both into our studies next year.
What surprised me?
Under “What like skills would you like to learn?”, both girls mentioned “using money wisely”. And the 8 year old mentioned grammar(in her defense I did not explain the term life skills before she started answering.) But I didn’t know anyone in the family was actually ASKING to learn grammar or learn money skills. Which has brought me around to thinking about life skills this summer and next school year. Cooking, which I have backed off on letting them help in the last year or two in order to bring peace in that 5pm hour. Sewing, can I bring my mom up for a week during the school year for “sewing school”?Money-ooh, I need to work on MY money skills. I think a lot about character and spiritual learning, and I’m glad when our academic learning can take a step forward, but thank to Jimmie’s question, I’ll be making a list of life skills as well.
What’s not going to change despite this window into their thoughts?
When asked, “What do you think we should spend less time studying?”, the 10 year old replied, “Math and cursive.”
We have a teriffic math program, math is just a tough subject for her and made even tougher by learning with a younger sister that’s quicker with numbers. We’ll march on. Cursive is a lovely skill even if miniature keyboards are taking over the world. Both will stay.
So go ask your children some questions. You might be surprised, encouraged, and get in a nudge in the right direction for your post swimming pool studies.
Capture the Heart, and the Grammar Will Follow
We’re wrapping up our bird study this week with a final saturation. Today we took a couple of online quizzes to test our bird idenitification skills. With elbows and pats on the back we spotted bird after bird that would have been unrecognizable two months ago.The kids grab their bird books whenever we leave the house without any suggestive comment from me. We share a passion with Grandma now that can continue for years past our official learning time. Birding is no longer something I’m teaching them, they feel their own sense of ownership and kinship to these diverse, beautiful creatures.
On the other hand, I also looked through the girls individual assignments they’ve been working on to earn their bird nature patch at the local Nature Center. Allowing them to be independent, which is a little newer around here, I haven’t been checking over their work at each step.
Today I got the full picture and and I saw detailed information about bird species, habitat, anatomy, eating habits, and migration. I also saw partial sentences, lower case letters to start a sentence, sloppy handwriting, misspelled words, and mistakes crossed out instead of erased and re-written. The heart of the work was there, the presentation was lacking!
And whose fault is it? We haven’t spent much time on all things grammatical. It’s on my list for next year. Should I now berate myself and erase mentally what we’ve learned through our nature and art study in the recent months. The voice in my head begins, “If my child attended fill-in-the-blank school or lived with such-and-such-homeschool family, I’m sure they would get all of their skills at the same time with the same amount of excellence.”
I could run toward worry. I certainly have asked myself some questions today as I went over the necessary corrections with the girls(note: they are turning in this work for their badge, this isn’t work heading into the trash, which is why the focus on appearance presented itself).
Or I can breathe.
Wait, my breathing seemed a little too much like breathing during labor.
Let’s try again.
Do they have to learn all of their skills with equal ability in the 3rd and 4th grade?
Wouldn’t I rather have it this way than perfect punctuation without a bit of interest or passion?
I have a feeling if their hearts are captured with learning, the mechanics will follow easily enough when we’re ready.