Apples of Gold Home School News

     The greatest things about summer are mud, sun, forests, and freedom to take them all in. Summer school for homeschoolers means self-discovery, adventure, exploring, creative play. It means painting legs in clay (if you live in our region), splashing in a cool northern lake, sticking resistant worms on hooks (but first finding the worms in the squishy mud under warm rocks or yanking them out of the ground by flashlight after a rain). It means playing with baby dolls under the shade trees and collecting rocks. It means finding snakes in the garden and frogs in the pond and discovering the new hatch of baby ducks in the rushes. Summer home school means children being children. Laughter, flowers, long bike rides and sticky messes.

     Homeschoolers often close the “school” doors early, mid May or so. They seldom resume formal studies until after Labor Day and sometimes not until later in September (if they school traditionally at all). But with that, they sometimes harbor guilt. Are we doing “enough”? Should we be reviewing lessons over the summer months? Oh, yuck!

     Rest assured, that the well-roundedness of education would be lacking without the important freedoms which summertime offers. Self-education and adventurous play offer some of the best life education our children ever receive. Let’s wallow in it and have a great summer.