Moments in a homeschool

It's not that life in a homeschool is always blissful. Far from it.

There are days when homeschool seems to mostly mean stacks of books and piles of projects everywhere, chaos, and confusion.

But then there are the days we live for -- usually a string of them at a time.

Like last night.

When I got home, Jack announced that he was being like Archimedes. He was investigating mathematical principles all by himself. I could hear him in there, mumbling and making pronouncements from time to time with a very important air.

Another day, he'd have called it "building a catapult out of Lego and Cuisenaire Rods" and then practicing knocking down walls. Today, it was building the perfect War Machines to protect Troy.

At dinner, we watched the BBC's _Midsummer Night's Dream Retold_.

After dinner, Jack scurried around collecting all of our young people's Shakespeare book and checking to see if they have that story. (Three of them do.) He wanted to sit right down and dig in, but it was late, so we made a plan instead.

Every night before dinner we will read one of the versions of the story. At the end, we will watch another (more traditional) video production. Then, we will see if we can find three copies of the original play at the library book shop so that we can read scenes together.

Jack's excitement is the ingredient that makes homeschooling so satisfying. Rod and I are enjoying it for ourselves, too, of course -- but to see a young man on fire with learning is the real pay off.