This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure statement for more information.
Learning a musical instrument can offer so many benefits to a child, from the academic to the spiritual. From an increase in comprehension and math skills, to improvements in confidence and stress reduction, even to critical character development in perseverance and discipline, the rewards are tremendous.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure statement for more information.
As a homeschooling parent, what you choose to expose yourself to matters. The words you read, the voices you listen to, the videos you watch–they all become a little Greek chorus in your head on the days when you’re nailing it and on the days when you’re losing it. We must be careful to choose words and voices and videos that empower us and remind us that we’re not in this alone. I treated myself to Julie Bogart’s A Gracious Space, Fall Edition at the beginning of this school year and there have been so many times I’ve been glad I did.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure statement for more information.
““I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
This week started with blisteringly hot days and ended with the arrival of autumn, but only after a two hour haul into the mountains on Saturday to see the aspen gold. Every year, we drive up to Summit County to celebrate the equinox because it usually aligns perfectly with peek colors in high-country leaves. Autumn is my favorite season, and this day trip didn’t disappoint.
The picture you see above is not my desk. My desk is currently buried under a week’s worth of clean clothes waiting to be folded and put away. That steamy cup of coffee is also not mine. My coffee is almost always slugged back ice-cold, and I’m sure many of you fellow mamas can relate. Cold coffee and a pile of laundry are far from pin-able, but they are my reality.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure statement for more information.
It was a wonderful, though busy, week. I had a lot of projects going on for work, which managed to fill every nook and cranny I had available, outside of homeschool time. By Saturday, I was exhausted. I’m sure waking up with Ringo-the-pup in the middle of the night has also taken its toll (a price I’m willing to pay for all those puppy-breath kisses!)
I was a bit of an emotional mess last spring when I realized my oldest was going to be in first grade this year. Where does the time go, anyway?? But now we’ve got a few weeks of it under our belts and I have to say, it’s lovely. She’s at the wonderful stage where she has more questions and ideas spilling forth every day that I can manage to catch, and I love seeing where each week of homeschooling will take us.
We’re only a few weeks into our homeschool year, but I’m already loving the gentle season I’ve prepared for my youngest daughter. Our days are relaxed and pressure-free. I present her activities as invitations, not requirements, and emphasize free play above any academics. I’ve tossed all semblance of to-do lists for her–in fact, I don’t even really plan her homeschooling at all (other than a very loose idea of activities I’d like us to consider.)
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure statement for more information.
“Every part of nature teaches that the passing away of one life is the making of room for another…” – Henry D. Thoreau, Journals