The transition from winter to spring has brought more then new scenery this year. Amongst the most significant changes, I learned we’ll have a brand new baby in addition to homeschooling. But a new baby isn’t the biggest transition on my daughters mind. She’s been giving a lot of thought to school these days…as in…
Adventures in Making Maple Syrup: Part 4
The time finally came and we set our taps just over a week ago. We placed 15 taps around our property this year. This means we’ve enlisted the help of 9 maple trees to produce sap this year. Thanks to a sharp cold spell with snow we were able to store our sap a bit…
Why We Have School In The Kitchen
Yup, that’s right – the kitchen. I put quite a bit of effort into creating a stimulating make-shift classroom for my daughter before we embarked on our first year of homeschooling. I say make-shift because there was no extra room in our home to designate to education. So a portion of our livingroom got an…
Learning Without Labels
Have you given much thought to the labels which infiltrate the education system? “Gifted” children recieve their label and go on to enjoy academic activities which will help them thrive in a system which otherwise may not adequately challenge them. “Learning support” kids get their label and become eligible for tools and assistance to…
Your Life Moves In The Direction Of Your Strongest Thoughts
Several weeks ago I heard these words and immediately wrote them down. Well, I swiped them into my phone. While they were being presented in an entirely different context, I couldn’t help but to apply this thought to our journey into homeschooling. Today Shutterfly emailed me with “memories from this week five years ago”. A marketing tactic…
State Parks: A Classroom We Love
This time of year my brain starts to shift gears towards longer days and warmer weather. I’m still enjoying the warmth of wood burning in our fireplace, still snuggling on the couch with my knitting, and still savoring the tastes of my kitchen during the winter months. But the itch for spring is here. Scrolling through…
Adventures in Maple Syrup Making: Part 3
In this post we are going to talk about the actual process of tapping your maples tree(s). When I post Adventures in Making Maple Syrup: Part 4 we’ll wrap up the series with what you need to know to cook down your sap. After that, I will likely give a few updates on our 2017…
The Modern Homeschool Movement
The process of becoming a committed, all-or-nothing homeschool family started as a thought when my daughter was about two. That thought blossomed into a potential, which evolved into real possibility. Then we dipped our toes into home-based education to see how it may feel and finally we became fully immersed into this way of life. Ta-da!…
Collected Christmas Advise
Finally the tree is back outside, dropping its needles somewhere other than my livingroom. Nothing remains of the cookies but a few crumbs. And the Wiseman have been squeezed back into the box with the nutcracker. Now, what were we doing before all the Christmas chaos hit? Oh – homeschooling, that’s right. I was shocked…
Adventures in Maple Syrup Making: Part 2
If there were only one part of the sugaring process I could have you experience it would be smelling the sweet steam as it rolls up off the boiling sap. A whiff of the sweet air leads to actually tasting the maple favor in your mouth. It’s wonderful, amazing – absolutely unmatched by any other…
The Next Generation of Generations
Recently I have been wondering about who comes after Generation Z. The kids born after 2010- what are we calling them and how might we define them someday? My own kiddos will all fall into this infant generation which still has nearly 20 years worth of babies to be conceived. So what comes after Z?…
Adventures in Maple Syrup Making: Part 1
For years my husband has talked about tapping the maple trees on our property. Originally, I thought this was a bit extreme – who does that? What’s wrong with Aunt Jemima on our pancakes? And who wants to be lugging pails of sap around in the cold winter weather. Well as it turns out –…
The Home Front Educator 