Education at Home

For the past year and a half, I’ve been homeschooling my daughter. She’s now eight and in “second” grade. Most days we don’t follow a strict routine, and that works well for us. We manage to fit in all that we need to and I try not to stress about missing something that will impede [...]

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A Time to Slow Down

The holidays used to be rush, rush, rush for me. It wasn’t unusual to find me shopping during the last few days before Christmas for last minute gifts. While I wasn’t a devoted enough planner to shop on Black Friday or a good enough procrastinator to wait until Christmas Eve, I was still great at [...]

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Children and Nature

Now that the heat is going away, we are spending even more time outdoors. I find it extremely important to teach my daughter about the environment around her, and how to take care of it. This morning we went for a hike on the nearby Natchez Trace. This is the second official “hike” she’s gone [...]

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our Girls our Society and Body Image

I have four sons ages 24 to 3 I am the mother for the first time of a 7 year old daughter.  She is my one and only girl…she is so precious to me. I have found myself increasingly aware of the real pressure our society is trying to place on my daughter.  As I [...]

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Fun on Winter Nights!

There is so very little that I enjoy about Winter but one of my favorite things to do is to star gaze during Winter. A few Christmases ago, my family got a telescope. The kids’ name was on it but everyone knew it was really for me (is that wrong of me? Wait…don’t answer). I [...]

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A Child’s Hand

Little hands can learn so much about caring for the earth!

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Cultivating Lifelong Learning

Perhaps one of the most atypical things our family does that clearly lands us in the “not dabbling in normal” category is the way we educate. Or rather self-educate. You see, our family follows a type of learning sometimes referred to as “unschooling” or “life learning”. For us, “life learning” means supporting our individual personalties, [...]

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Chaos

Originally published by emphelan My life, my house, my children are in various states of chaos. These days when I am suppose to write about parenting or household subjects, I find myself lacking in items to share. My husband and I, our parenting skills are what some people call organic. We had children young, we [...]

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little homeschool on the homestead – part 2

last month, i mentioned a few curriculums i like and a few book series that i have in my possession and use from time to time. this month, i thought i’d mention a few things we use that are not necessarily considered ‘proper’ for education plus i’ll go more into using our everyday experiences on [...]

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

originally published by emphelan Birthday parties on the homestead never have to be boring events. With three friendly boys, we are always getting invitations to the town kids parties. The host usually has those ginormous blow up slides or moonwalks, or they have parties in restaurants or stores that cater to such events. I say [...]

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