“What kind of robes are we talking?” My 9-year-old’s eyes are wide and earnest as she looks up from her cinnamon roll to ask the question. We’ve found a table in the crowded café, plopped our Bibles and journals down, and waited patiently for our order. Now we begin what we came to do: study…
In 2017, we planned a trip to Rocky Mountain National. Park. In the weeks leading up to the trip I sought to instill in the kids a focused, mountains-are-amazing-and-we-can’t-wait-to-see-them mindset. I had no desire to spend an entire day driving cross-country only to have the kids too busy whining “Are we there yet?” to notice…
My oldest daughter hated writing until she was nine years old. She picked up Deborah Hopkinson’s picture book A Boy Called Dickens because she recognized the imaginative illustrations of John Hendrix. As she admired the pictures, she read some of the words. She learned that Dickens simply wrote down the stories that he had in…
It’s one thing to read about mountain lions from the comfort of the car, squinting at a faded placard outside of Henry Coe State Park. The plaque made it clear: we were leaving safety. Its topics included “Camping During the Tarantula Migration,” “How To Avoid the Feral Boars,” and “What to Do If You See…
I’ve self-diagnosed myself with adult amnesia. Maybe I made that term up, but I think it’s a real problem. I have trouble remembering what it’s like to be a kid. Do you? Actually, I do remember much of what it’s like. The problem is I have trouble remembering to remember. When I was a kid,…
Recently, my kids and I took a trip to our local science museum to see a planetarium show and an IMAX film. The films featured opposite corners of our universe: the planetarium show catapulted us through space to the rusty crags of Mars, while the IMAX special plunged us into caves that glittered like forests…
For years, read-aloud time was the beating heart of our homeschool. From the time my kids were toddlers, they’d tolerate academics because they knew that once they finished practicing homophones and math facts, we’d get to the good stuff — our “Cozy Up Reading Time,” during which they’d each grab a snack, I’d grab a…
She stands on tiptoes, watching and waiting. When at last it is time, she turns to wave to me and walks forward, depositing her golden token. She bounces up the single stair, scrutinizing the scene before her. What will she choose this time? The roaring dragon? The leaping orca? Or one of her usual favorites—the…
If you have a train going 40 miles per hour, traveling from New York to Chicago, and another train going 45 miles per hour traveling from Chicago to New York, at what exact geographical point on the journey will those trains pass each other? Did anyone else just experience a brief, but real rage response?…
When I was a child, I had a doll named Elena who lived in the space beneath a white plastic lawn chair. Every day when I came home from school, I’d close the door behind me and pull back the makeshift curtain to reveal Elena lying on her Poly-fill stuffed mattress, just as I had…
My Tree Journal There are five specific trees on our land–an oak, a rosebud, a crab apple, a silver maple, and a towering cottonwood–that have been singled out. Each of these trees has been chosen by one of the nature journalers in our family. Our plan is to carefully observe our selected tree month by…
From the moments they begin to crawl and take their first steps, they are inching into a broader world. The first time they take the spoon and go after the peas and carrot on their own or eat the spaghetti with their chubby little fingers from off their high chair tray, they are gaining independence….
