To my daughter

   
      My dearest daughter,
     You are beautiful.  You are strong.  You can be both at the same time.  I hope you never let anyone convince you that you have to stop wearing skirts and dancing to be strong.  There is strength in your femininity.  There is strength in your service and love.  There is strength in your sweet, kind heart.  You do not have to be tough to be strong.  You do not have to be harsh to be strong.  You can love ruffles and flowers and be strong.  You can love fire trucks and climbing trees and be strong. You can be you and love all of those things and  be strong.  You can love God and be strong.  There is more strength in knowing who you are and being that person, then there is in conforming to the ideas of another.  Your greatest strength will come from knowing that you are a child of God, a divine creation with limitless potential.  So go ahead and wear a dress every day.  Let pink be your favorite color. Keep loving fire trucks and science and math and singing and dancing all at the same time.  Keep being the amazing daughter of God that you were created to be.  Be you.  Be strong.  And remember, when you are weak, He will carry you and make your weakness become strengths.

Judge not

Simone Biles, Olympic gold medal winning gymnast. Misty Copeland, first female African American Principle Dancer at the American Ballet Theater.  Ryan Gosling, actor. Bethany Hamilton, world renown surfer, you know, the one who's arm was bitten off and she kept surfing. Christopher Paolini, youngest author to write a bestselling series. Emma Watson, actress.  Taylor Swift, country singer. Richard Lorenzo, founder and CEO of multi-million dollar business Fifth Avenue Brands, a public relations firm. (Which he started in 10th grade)  What do they all have in common?  They were all home schooled. So the next time you want to judge an entire community by that one person you knew pick one of these.  Also, keep in mind that some kids are home schooled because they have special needs and their parents stepped up to take their education into their own hands.  Maybe that guy you met who has no boundaries and doesn't get social cues is like that because he has special needs you don't know about and it has nothing to do with his way of being educated.

Unschooling

     Unschooling. Deep breath.Will I always have to defend it?  Will I always have to explain to people that I'm not just being lazy and negligent?  Do you know what it is?  It seems like most people know about it because of the families who give it a bad name.  The kids who only study video games and TV.  No that's not unschooling, no I don;t just toss my kids a crust of bread each morning and hope they survive the day.  Unschooling is away of life, a really beautiful way of life for us.
     Let me start off by saying that we do have a schedule, it is what works for us.  Our "core subjects" come first; spiritual devotional (Scripture study, prayer, pledge of allegiance, and song), Math, foreign language, and piano.  Those are our core subjects because that is what prayer inspired they be for my children.  Some days Devotional is the only "formal" subject we do.  After that they have a few other subjects they do, actually, if I am honest they do far more then a few.  One day I sat down and counted up the "subjects" we do each week because I was comparing my kids to other kids.  It turns out the list of regular subjects studied each week exceeded a dozen.  Most of the them were not formal sit down lessons, there were no books, no curriculum and yet we learned still.  But how?  Let me give you a few examples.
     Benjamin loves circuits and electricity.  I bought him a circuit maze set and he sat right down. I could see him analyzing it, the flow of current, closing the circuit, positive, negative, LED, and off he went.  I tired to do one of the puzzles, but I couldn't figure it out so he taught me...and by taught I mean he showed me how to do it. :) 
     Glen hates to write, but has discovered that he loves to write books.  You see I could force him to sit and do writing practice for a torturous 15 minutes, or I could buy him a notebook and encourage him to write down his ideas.  And now he sits, sometimes for hours, writing books.
     Elizabeth is learning to read and spell.  We have a book she practices out of, but I don't force. It's on the schedule and if I forget she reminds me.   Then she likes to practice writing the words she is learning to read, which of course reinforces the words in her mind.  Today her "spelling test" involved shaving cream. 
     Abigail is practicing writing her name so she can show it off to her friend at church.  She also counts EVERYTHING.
     We have learned about physics at the park, nature as we walk, politics, finances, building, far away places, cooking, the list if endless.  Learning really is a way of life.  When people ask me if we go through the summer I think they envision sitting at a desk every day.  It's easy to go to school every day when you see that we are surrounded by opportunities to learn.  Sometimes sitting in church becomes an art lesson as a bored child asks for a piece of paper and draws what he sees.  Sometimes a trip tot he park becomes a lesson on seeds or bugs as curious children ask questions.  Every week when we go grocery shopping we learn about measuring weight, estimating price, sticking to a budget, how the food got there.  November isn't just about Thanksgiving around here, it's a lesson about the government, voting, politics, laws, check and balances.  April is a great times to talk about taxes, what is it, where does it go, do you think it's good or bad. Books teach so many lessons I cannot even begin to list it all.
   You see, unschooling is about finding opportunities to learn from every experience in life.  It's about seeing the interests of the child and encouraging them, proving opportunities to learn, and often, finding someone to mentor them.  They know what they love, they have an intense desire to learn! 

Lego creativity

     Do you ever feel completely clueless?  I do sometimes, maybe a lot.  Sometimes I even feel stupid, ssh, don't tell my kids I used that word, it's not allowed.  I'm trying to have a growth mindset, but sometimes I just feel like my brain is broken.  The other day we were sitting listening to Treasure Island on audio book.  Benjamin doesn't enjoy reading as much as the rest of us and sometimes he puts up a fight over it.  To encourage him to listen to Treasure Island with us I brought out Legos and asked him if he wanted to build a pirate ship.  That got him to sit and listen to not just one chapter, but three chapters, he didn't want to stop.  Legos is one of the areas that I feel like I am seriously lacking in skills. You may think it silly, but I am very ashamed that I have never felt like I was good at Legos.  I remember building with my brother and he is over there making cars and ships and I'm like "I built a brick wall!"  I don't let my kids quite, I don't let them say they aren't good at something and leave it there, I encourage them and I challenge them.  The last year I have also been really trying to educate myself too, so I applied the same rule.  I asked Benjamin the other night as we sat building pirate ships and I felt my mind go blank "Do you think I would be more skilled if I practiced?" and he said "yes."  Today when the boys were building with Legos I sat down and I started building too.  Almost immediately I felt that familiar sensation of my mind shutting down because I didn't know what to do, why do I do that?  I held two Lego pieces and I didn't even know how to put them together.  Then I remembered that little round piece that goes on the bottom and I grabbed it, but that made my boat round and I wanted it long.  I grabbed a few more pieces, quickly discarding the idea of having a boat all the same color.  Then I started building up the sides, I made a few changes to make it look like a railing.  I added a cannon and a couple of guns.  I wanted a figurehead, but that was far beyond what I could do so I just closed that end up.  Benjamin made me a little pirate man and all I needed was a mast.  I figured out how to make two short pieces longer for my mast and even found a flag. At one point I asked Benjamin to help me, he was my mentor.  I still feel childish and stupid, but I also feel insanely proud of my little pirate ship.
     There are a lot of areas that I feel totally lost in, math, chemistry, electricity, music, just about anything involving computers.  My brain starts to shut down, just like when someone starts giving me directions. I nob like I understand, but I'm really just trying to figure out what language they are speaking.  But you know what?  One of the most beautiful truths I have learned on this homeschooling journey is that our education never ends.  It didn't end when I finished high school or even after college, I am always learning.  I'm pushing myself, finding areas where I am lacking, like Legos, art, and math, and trying so hard to learn and do them better.  I find myself learning as I teach my kids, and I find myself being taught by them.  Benjamin teaches me how to build with Legos and how electricity works, Glen is teaching me the finer points of writing comics and he has a million facts about animals to share.  I know that Heavenly Father wants us to learn all that

we can and I am grateful for the opportunity to teach and learn every day!