We’re All Homeschooling!

I’ve been visiting some wonderful blogs, many of them posted by homeschooling families.  While looking at Camp Creek Blog I realized we’re all homeschoolers! I believe everything we do is teaching and so home and car and super market are all “school”.  Much of what I do at Smiling Tree is what a homeschool family might do. The setting here is relaxed with lots of opportunities for exploration and discovery plus specific materials provided for special projects.   A term I learned on one of these blogs is “strewing”  , this is something I like to do at Smiling Tree; just place something out without mention and just see  who discovers it and what they do with it.   I usually have a plan for the materiels I set out but it’s always fun when parents and/or kids come up with new and different ways to use familiar materials.  It seems when ever there is paint out, leaves and rocks and oakgalls get painted along with paper.   I make an effort to set out or “strew”  interesting thing for the kids to find; little hand made dolls at kid eye level, a shark jaw in the bathroom, stethescope on the end table, magnifying glass on the picnic table.  On one particularly cold morning I didn’t have to do anything special for the kids to make it a “special” morning.  I took the kids outside while the moms stayed inside next to the warm fire.  During our walk outside we found a puddle of water frozen  with leaves suspended inside.  The kids loved breaking the ice and holding the frozen “stained glass” up to see the sun shining through the frozen leaves.  …..simple pleasures, wonderful discoveries….”home schooling”!

http://www.whiteoakschool.com/camp-creek-blog/

Tags: home school, strewing