Homeschooling on the farm has been a natural fit. I’ve learned a lot over the past three years and hope that if you have any interest in it you try it!
One of my favorite parts is that there’s a natural flexibility with homeschooling that can shift with the seasons, weather, haying, sugaring, or building projects. We can embrace learning anywhere and stoke the fire of learning by doing. I want to start sharing what education for our family looks like because I want more parents to feel empowered.
This morning was spent waking up peacefully and having bacon and eggs with hot coffee as a family. We then head out to do farm chores. James raises lambs and ducks and can independently care for them. We head back inside to wash up and pack up for his weekly RC airplane build project with a local veteran who served as a pilot. After 2 hours of design, building, and flight we head over to where Dad is working and help the stone masons at our latest job site. Our last task is to make chicken enchiladas verde together using some basic Spanish, and share a midday meal.
When it is just the two of us at meals I often do our read aloud. We are loving a book called “Brothers in Arms” about a family in Strafford, Vermont facing the realities of wartime and the consequences of political upheaval. Even a simple lunchtime can be utilized for connecting Vermont’s topographical features with American Revolutionary War History. (Sure, there’s no deafeningly loud cafeteria, fluorescent lighting, or rushed mealtimes, but we get by!)
If morning chores and lessons are finished we like to work on longer projects. Somedays it’s an academic project, others it’s a STEM project (like a robot build), or mucking stalls. Today the lambs got spoiled and had their barn stall deep cleaned. We blasted music and sang as we shoveled.
