How childhood looks like at our home

If you ever run into my family in the neighborhood, my girls' pants will most likely have holes on their knees (and perhaps stitched by their little hands using hand sewing techniques). They love their worn-in pants with holes because these pants are comfortable for them. Their toes will surely have some dirt in them and bottom of their feet will easily give away how they run through dirt barefoot... every day.

If you have a conversation with them, they will probably know very little about popular songs or current TV shows (or Disney movies) but could probably tell you about their favorite plants and animals and why they love them so much. 

Our dinner chat is around places they want to visit soon and what they want to experience there (currently Arizona to see Saguaro Cactus). We also enjoy talking about favorite part of the day which they will gladly tell us some kind of made-up game they came up with. 

We love spending time together and reading books. We also love sharing life adventures together even though we occasionally get frustrated and cry because we are all humans. 

When we decided to start homeschooling, we made a commitment to their childhood. To offer as much unstructured open-ended time as well as time to learn from nature through play and promised that we would continue to have a lot of conversations about many different things in life. We talk a lot about design because that's who we are as a family. We also talk a lot about what's right and not right as humans because that's important. 

We can never compare one family to another because each family is unique... 

But.

I do believe each family should and can build a unique mission that is true to the family. 

And yes... why not add some dirt time to the mission even just a little bit:)
Because I swear... kids usually never fight when they are knee deep in the mud playing.