the campbell smarty-pants academy

A lot of people have been asking me how school is going and I know an update is long overdue.
So, here's my first attempt at a snapshot of our days...

Some days we begin our school routine and everything just seems to click into place. We cruise through our curriculum and I get that nice check-in-the-box feeling of accomplishment. Kate happily plays on a blanket, Kenna is in the mood to join us quietly at the table with a coloring book and Tristan is really excited about that new reader. Nobody falls our of their chair or whines about writing practice or wets their pants or cries about the broken purple crayon or spits up in the floor vent...because those are things that happen on all the other days. Those days when I might choose to slam close the books and holler cheerfully exclaim, "that's it, let's go outside!" We might come back to that lesson later after a little wind-in-our-hair break...

...or we might not. We might just spend the rest of the morning outside and the afternoon in our reading spot with a huge pile of library books and a bucket of Legos. We might choose to shift our attention to a special geography lesson or a messy science project. Whatever we do, I know the kids are learning and making progress in this thing called school. Boxes are being checked, if not in the order I might have intended, and the result is more fun with less stress. Some very wise friends have reminded me more than once that the curriculum is not my master. The days when we have to step away from the workbooks are not a wash just because we only made it through phonics lesson 12.8 when I thought we would finish 13.1. Maybe the sole purpose in some of those days is for me to learn hard lessons in patience and self-control (darn this temper of mine). I set out to educate my children at home and I am quickly realizing that I have just as much to learn as they do.
Welcome to the Campbell house where everyone is in school! While it's not always an easy thing, it's definitely a good thing and we are glad we have chosen this path for our family for this time.