Homeschool Goes On...

Ever had one of those mornings where school just sort of starts rather on its own?

I over-slept. Not that I've never slept beyond children rising and getting busy, but once in a while, it does happen.

I think I'm more 'thoughtful' of my husband's leaving this weekend for his new job than I care to admit.

He will be gone a good 12-18 months. He'll only be 6 hours away, but still...we've never really been apart for any serious length of time. He has gone to help on jobsites where he might be there 7-10 days...but 12-18 months??

I'm not really worried -- LOL, we're stout country folk here. No, let me rephrase myself -- we are stout backwoods, mountain-living, rural folk.


Think some sort of combination of Caroline Ingalls meets Olivia Walton meets Ma Kettle.

That would be us. The Ingalls-Walton-Kettle family. We are just the other side of rural out here on our mountain, but we have enough civilization around us to be comfortable. Town is about 13 miles down the mountain and over the highway. hey -- we're big time now -- we just got a Super Wal-Mart here.

But, I just haven't had a sound sleep all of this week now and today, it sort of caught up with me I guess. The children have morning tasks done aside from barn chores, and some are doing school without me.

Our schooling looks like this...on a good day...Rod & Staff books scattered along the harvest table we have. There is math, English, several Pathway Readers, the large KJV Bible and the big green Webster's Dictionary. The white board is ready with Bible verses for copy and memory work. Someone might be over in the living room, listening to a CD from Homeschool Radio Shows to give us a narrative later on. And the littles are coloring. That's their main contribution to a school day most of the time. They grab their ABC series and the crayons (ok, they are crayons only in the loosest of sense....how do you keep proper, intact crayons with so many oungers around?) and they begin creating masterpieces of school work for the day.

We have several read-aloud times during the day. Could be Considering God's Creation, or Mystery of History, our Heroes of History books, or some of our family reading time books...Little House on the Prairie series, Dear America or My America series, or any of our Rod & Staff story books we've been collecting.

Later today someone will have started a Daniel Boone DVD and most will be sitting in the living room. They might pick Christy, but usually they go for Daniel Boone...or one of the original Adventures of Robin Hood. We like that old time television stuff 'round here.

But...as I sit here, school is going on...crayons are all over, and one of the middles is reading a Pathway Reader while the youngers work on their math workbooks...one complaining because another is getting farther ahead.

This is a good morning. It's these days, when Mom might not be doing her part as she should and school just flows along regardless, that I sit back and get that warm, fuzzy, homeschool-y kind of feeling. Right now, public school would be nothing but arguments and paper fights and mayhem.

Don't get me wrong -- we have mayhem here too. Quite often.

That's why we live just on the other side of rural. That's where the Kettle side of the family comes into the mix!