My Favorite Thing… about Homeschooling

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a corner of our backyard… a project in progress

One of the best major life decisions I have ever made was to homeschool my children. I just love so many things about it… and I know I allude to homeschooling all the time, but haven’t really gone directly into how *we* do it at our house… I think I will add that to my list of topics for Thoughts On Health Mondays…

But for now, basically it all comes down to this… we focus on whatever is interesting the kids and follow that passion. Every subject under the sun can be gleaned from stuff that you naturally find interesting.

Greek Mythology? Yep, that has literature, history, science, math, etc… Cooking? Yep, that has math, reading, science, history, even geography (as we are going through all the states this year and one part of that for us is looking up regional recipes!)

So the newest passion of Clara’s is archeology… she gets it from her Daddy, who loved archeology so much it was his major in college at Brown.

We are going for it in a big way… beyond reading about it and learning the science behind it and studying fossils and such… we are doing an actual dig in our backyard! It’s been so exciting.

staking off the grid

First, we had to do a lot of research behind how to actually set up a dig and document it. Then we chose a small plot of land in the corner of our yard… roped it off into a grid… got tools, and set to work.

Miles finding a cool rock

Clara digging through tough clay

couldn’t resist a picture of that luscious hair in the sunshine

It’s very early on in the dig… still working on the top layer. But layer by layer, we plan to sort through and photograph and tag all the major elements in our soil… rocks… shells… and hopefully (fingers crossed!) dare I say a fossil or two?

Heck, I’m putting this out there to the Universe… we want to discover a new type of dinosaur and get to name it ourselves. There. I’ve said it. Don’t we all dream that??? How cool would a Koniver-saurous be?

Clara dumping her soil onto a screen for sifting

Miles sifting through and putting his findings into labeled bags


his precious little hands, swiftly becoming as large as my own

I have no doubt that we’ll discover a megalodon tooth or two if we stick to it long enough… our town is famous for megalodon teeth popping up everywhere… on the beaches, in man-made canals… it wouldn’t be the first tooth we’ve found.

Clara isolates a small shell she found in the topsoil

Miles using a pick to gouge out a deeper hole

In the meantime… we are having fun. And getting our hands dirty. And tagging and bagging little things, and dreaming about what has gone on in our backyard, long before any of us were born. A great picture book for kids to dream about that sort of stuff is In My Own Backyard, by Judi Kurjian.

So… supporting my kids dreams, spending my days with them, letting them led me in fun adventures like archeology digs, dreaming, living… those are all my favorite things about homeschooling. History was always one subject I could never get excited about until these two little souls opened up my eyes… to the possibilities right outside my very own doorstep. Oh, and getting to do it all in our pajamas… priceless.

I’ll keep you posted on any treasures we find! xoxo