The Wilson Kids Times - April 2007

Glory be!! Spring has arrived!! I breathe a sigh of relief! Every year I find myself thinking, please let me see another spring! In fact, I desire many more springs.

Our gardens have already made a beautiful start, so I took some time to put together a video at Photobucket. Some of the photos are from this year already. I hope you enjoy it.

Homeschool Musings

The older I get, and the older my children get, the more laid back I become about their education. I hope that does not sound to you as careless as it looked when I wrote it down! It's just that I agonized so much, way back when, over my oldest child's education, I think I killed some of his natural love of learning and thus killed some of his motivation to educate himself!

My second son will graduate in two years. I look at him and worry about all the math we need to do (I think you need math) and yet he is going through something of an educational growth spurt on his own. He has been spending six to seven hours a day reading. Yes! He has been so into reading, in fact, that I have been hesitant to pull him from whatever he has his nose in to make him do math. I feel like he must be soaking up some things that will help him in all areas, including the math that I am sure we will dive into around some nearby corner.

In sum, I try not to worry too much. I have been doing this long enough to realize that homeschool does not equal "school at home." If we want to do 40 hours of literature this week and 40 hours of math next week, we have the freedom and the luxury to do so!

Recommended Website

Hewitt Homeschooling is a website we have ordered from in the past and been very pleased with. If you look at their website, I think you will find their mission to be very focused and easy to understand. Somehow, I feel more committed just looking at their site! Anyway, I just wanted to share our experience with Hewitt Homeschooling, in case you have not heard of them already.

April 2007 Book Recommendation

Before I go, there is a book I want to share with my fellow herbalists out there. It's a book I keep handy at all times, year-round. It's Rosemary Gladstar's Family Herbal. If you are into herbs and learning how to make some of your own effective herbal remedies, then this is a book I would highly recommend. I was so impressed with it, in fact, the first thing I did was to order an extra copy for a dear relative who tends a large herb garden in the Appalachian Mountains. She loved it! It's a book with many recipes and how-to's for budding and established herbalists alike!

Take care! I'll talk to you again in May!

Quote of the Month:
April 2007

"One of the striking differences between a cat and a lie is that the cat has only nine lives."
Mark Twain

A Mother's Journal

Livin N Writin About It

Five In A Row ~ The "Heart" of our Homeschool:

Art of the Month:
"Rowing"

Quotations

"A rich child often sits in a poor mother's lap."
Danish proverb

"I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand."
Chinese proverb