educational thoughts, kind of

This is the view out my kitchen window (or from my deck, rather).

Hang on a sec. Let me get a different lens.

There. That’s better.

The oldest two tore down the (hideous) plastic-and-wood fort this morning while I was visiting with a friend. I think they said they are upcycling the materials into a car.

They did not use the word “upcycle.”

Legos. That was what I thought of when I looked out the window. They’re just playing Legos, but on a bigger scale. 

Or Tetris, now that I think about it.

Maybe life is just one big Tetris Lego game. We spend our days figuring out how to fit things together: people, furniture, food, car parts, words…

Then my friend left and I called the kids in from their giant Lego Tetris game and we watched this youtube video: Seven Lies About Homeschoolers. The kids loved it, especially the ending.

My daughter has still not gotten the hang of reading. She loves words—copying them, listening to them, playing with them—but she isn’t able to (easily) decode them.

Sometimes I feel completely confident with our decision to let her learn at her own pace. Other times, I freak out, but only on the inside.

Despite her inability to do something as basic as reading, she is sparklingly confident and happy, much more so than I was at her age. This gives me peace.

FYI: when a homeschooled kid (who happens to live in my house) plagiarizes, all hell breaks loose.

A simple ‘F’ would be so much easier.

This same time, years previous: snapshots, kiddisms, getting in fixes