Cultivating creativity, wisdom, and joy in an ordinary life:
Homeschooling, Home Business, and Soul Care.

Old year gratitude, New Year hope and a poem.

Inspiration and encouragement / Learning Lifestyle

Old Year Gratitude; New Year Hope

This year — 2020 — is almost over. It’s been quite a year! Decades from now, I’m guessing that people will remember it most as the Year of the Pandemic; the year that Covid-19 changed the way that many of...

Peacemaking and mending breaches is part of life, and poetry, story, and song can help us learn how to do the things that matter.

Inspiration and encouragement / Justice and Peace

Peacemaking and Mending Breaches

Remembering Things that Matter I rarely post anything about current events, but once in awhile, it happens. I’ve been thinking about peacemaking, mending breaches, and restoring what has been broken. For issues that have existed for years or decades or...

How to homeschool the Charlotte Mason Way by Anya Campbell

Charlotte Mason / Home School / How to . . . / Inspiration and encouragement

Homeschool 101: Charlotte Mason Style

In which a student of Charlotte Mason (British educator 1842-1923) imperfectly outlines first steps of the Mason method with an eye toward hope and encouragement to new home educators. By: Anya Campbell  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ampc7/ Ideas on How to Begin I...

Creativity and Soul Care / Home School / Inspiration and encouragement

What To Do When Everything Changes

After the first of the Great Homeschool Conventions ended early, I drove home from Texas to Virginia. While I listened to audiobooks most of the way, there was plenty of time to think about what the next few weeks or...

Planning is making time for things that matter.

Home School / Planning and Time Management

Year-End Review, New Year Planning

December is the month when my planning instinct kicks into overdrive. I flip the calendar page on the first, and it’s as if I’ve opened a new channel in my brain. All the while I’m enjoying holiday preparations and wondering...

Books and Reading / Home School

The Lawgivers: A Review of a New Plutarch Translation

Of all Charlotte Mason’s recommendations, I found her advice to read Plutarch with children one of the least appealing. I enjoy old books and love learning, but somehow, it seemed especially daunting to fit in Plutarch along with everything else....

Books and Reading / Home School

What Grade Are You In? A Bit of Common Sense from Understood Betsy

Summer is winding down in the northern hemisphere and schoolbooks are being dusted off and swimsuits put away. I always enjoyed getting back into an orderly and predictable schedule (as orderly and predictable as was possible in a household with...

Learn like Leonardo da Vinci with study notes and learning journals.

Home School / How to . . . / Penmanship

Learn Like Leonardo da Vinci with Study Notes and Learning Journals

How do you learn? If you wanted to learn about architecture, invention, drawing, painting, sculpture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, paleontology, or cartography, how would you begin? Long before textbooks and workbooks were invented, people of...

Home School / Planning and Time Management

Dad Lessons and Homeschool Schedules

Considering the greater good “Are you finished with school? Want to ride with me to the dump?” my husband Donald inquired, poking his head into the schoolroom. Pencils flew everywhere as the boys jumped up, ready to go. We hadn’t...

Should the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award have been renamed?

Books and Reading / Justice and Peace

Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Art of Historical Fiction

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Award was recently renamed the Children’s Literature Legacy Award, a remarkably generic name for such a prestigious award. A lot has been said about the change, and most that I have seen has been negative, with reactions...

Middle school reading lists: What a difference 100 years makes!

Books and Reading

Middle School Reading Lists: What a difference 100 years makes!

I recently came across an interesting comparison of two middle school reading lists. The author, Annie Holmquist, compared a list from 1908 with a current list from the same state on the basis of time period, thematic elements, and reading...

Books and Reading / Charlotte Mason / Language Arts and Literature / Learning Lifestyle

When is Reading Hard?

Reading, Comprehension, and Knowledge Do you enjoy reading? I do. I grew up reading voraciously — new books, old books, books set in the city, the country, in foreign lands, and many books that featured characters that lived lives very...

Read poetry every week; it will nourish your soul.

Creativity and Soul Care / Language Arts and Literature

How to Enjoy Poetry Every Week

Do you read poetry and share it with your children? I’d like to prescribe a dose of poetry every single day, but I know that might seem daunting. How about poetry every week instead? Start with simple poems, laying a solid...

The Art of Cursive coloring book is a delightful way to practice handwriting / penmanship after you have completed the CursiveLogic workbook.

News, Opportunities, and Events

July 2017 Newsletter

A newsletter and a reading suggestion I’ve had several people ask me if there is a difference between the newsletter I hand out at conferences, and the one that comes via email, so I thought I’d show you a sample....

Deep Work by Cal Newport review

Entrepreneurship / Planning and Time Management

Deep Work by Cal Newport: A Review in Visual Notes

I enjoy books on time management, life balance, and purpose, but I’ve read so many that it’s rare that one stands out. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport definitely stood out. Moving past elementary...

Choosing books for boys isn't hard: avoid twaddle and give them the good stuff.

Books and Reading / Language Arts and Literature

Choosing Books for Boys

Choosing books for boys isn’t all that hard. Give them adventure — the kind with blood and courage, dirt and ingenuity — and watch their imaginations soar, assuming they haven’t been “Eustaced”* by the sort of twaddle mentioned in Martin...

Easter Wings by George Herbert is a beautiful poem for spring.

Creativity and Soul Care / Language Arts and Literature

Easter Wings: A Poem for Spring

Springtime puts me into a poetic frame of mind, so by the time April arrives — it’s Poetry Month, you know — I have a stack of poetry by my chair and favorite lines running through my head. Most of the...

Why Freshmen Fail and How to Avoid It

Books and Reading / High School, College, and Alternatives

Why Freshmen Fail: A Review

I picked up Professor Carol‘s new book, Why Freshmen Fail, at the Great Homeschool Convention in Fort Worth, thinking it might be a resource I could recommend to parents of high-school and almost-high-school age students. I didn’t expect to find...

David and the Phoenix by Edward Ormondroyd is a middle-grade fantasy tale. One of Janice Campbell's 1001 Good Books.

Books and Reading

David and the Phoenix: One of the 1001 Good Books

David and the Phoenix by Edward Ormondroyd One of my childhood companions was an old copy of David and the Phoenix by Edward Ormondroyd. It was one of the books I turned to whenever I wanted to travel the fairie realms, and...

Books are the holiday gifts you can read.

Books and Reading / Ideas Worth Sharing

Holiday Gifts You Can Read

Give the gift of delight There’s a lot to be said for gifts you can read. Books provide hours of delight at just pennies per hour, and of course, I have a few suggestions (it was hard to whittle down the list!)....

Keeping thanks in Thanksgiving can help you make great memories.

Inspiration and encouragement

Keeping Thanks in Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is an opportunity to spend time with loved ones and give thanks for the blessings of the year. Ideally, the holiday is something to anticipate with joy. Realistically, I know that the prospect of spending a day or more with a houseful of volatile opinion...

Virtue, education, and the electorate on election day 2016

Ideas Worth Sharing / Justice and Peace

Virtue, Education, and the Electorate

An orderly line of voters snaked halfway around the parking lot at the polling place this morning. The crowd courteously made way for seniors with canes, wheelchairs, or walkers, with quiet thanks to those who sported evidence of military service. My...

A leaf from the St. Florian Psalter.

Creativity and Soul Care / Inspiration and encouragement

The Book of Psalms in Music and Art

Psalms in Music The Psalms were the first poetry and prayer that I encountered as a child, and they still bring daily joy, peace, and comfort. I recently found this playlist of the entire book of Psalms in music, sung...

Illumination coloring page by Daniel Mitsui

Ideas Worth Sharing

Handwriting and Reading: Ideas Worth Sharing — IWS #4

It’s time for another Ideas Worth Sharing post, so even thought my internet connection is barely working, I’m going to attempt it. You’ll notice that almost all my links this time have to do with handwriting and reading. That’s because it’s...

Scorpions on a stick in Beijing, China.

Learning Lifestyle / News, Opportunities, and Events

The China Visit: Part 2—Beijing

We had only three days in Beijing, but like Chengdu, it was a living kaleidoscope of sights, scents, and sounds. On every corner it seemed there was something out of the ordinary — dozens of red lanterns, exotic street food...

The China Visit, Part 1: Chengdu

Learning Lifestyle / News, Opportunities, and Events

The China Visit: Part 1—Chengdu

I had the extraordinary privilege of traveling to China in May for the Chengdu Homeschool Conference plus a few days of sightseeing. I spent the first part of the trip in Chengdu, which is in the Sichuan province. After the...

A poem, truth, and the month of May illustrated by "Interesting Story" by Laura MuntzLyall, 1898.

Books and Reading

A poem, truth, and the month of May

Under the Willows by James Russell Lowell, 1819 – 1891 May is a pious fraud of the almanac, A ghastly parody of real Spring Shaped out of snow and breathed with eastern wind; Or if, o’er-confident, she trust the date, And, with her...

Penmanship Matters; Here's Why.

Charlotte Mason / Creativity and Soul Care / Language Arts and Literature / Penmanship

Penmanship Matters: Here’s Why You Need to Teach It

Is there any reason for an ordinary person to learn decent penmanship? I believe there is, even if handwriting seems difficult or unnecessary. Clear italic or cursive penmanship is an art form that virtually anyone can master. Because handwriting is...

Ideas Worth Sharing

How to Wisely Praise Children

Praise has power. Well-earned and properly given praise has the power to motivate and build confidence, while improperly directed praise can create unhealthy attitudes, provide an inaccurate self-concept, and even make children unwilling to try new or hard things. What...

Indoor snowmen can be a sanity saver when it's cold outside.

Creativity and Soul Care / How to . . .

Indoor Snowmen: Mom’s Sanity Saver

My granddaughter called this morning, and we talked about building snowmen. Since we are both living in a snow globe, it seemed a perfect topic. However, I did experience a pang of guilt upon hanging up. Remembering the years of...

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