Why DIY?

This is the fourth part in a series based on this cost/benefit analysis.  Here you can find Part 1:Scoping out the Sequence, Part 2: Making the Grade and Part 3: Unscheduling.  Next I want to talk about this "plus" for us in letting go of our math textbooks:

• I get to create the lessons and activities myself.

I've said this before many times, but I want to stress again that this series isn't meant to be an objective argument against the use of textbooks, or textbooks for math.  It is simply an exploration of why that choice has "fallen for me in pleasant places".  So if you read the above "pro" for going without textbooks and you think "Why on earth would anyone want to create things from scratch when they could be purchased already done?" then by all means, purchase them ready-made and don't give it a second thought!

I have a dear friend who is constantly knitting things for her children.  One Christmas she made her boys really cool real-looking "chainmail" with yarn!  She makes baby gifts (several for us!) and all kinds of other wonderful, cozy homemade treasures.  For the longest time I felt intimidated.  I saw all of the things she was doing and I thought to myself, "This is what good, dedicated mothers do - they knit.  Knitting is such an essential homemaking skill and it is frugal and it is such a wonderful, productive kind of busy.  If I was a good mother, I would do this, too."

I did try learning to knit, but I wasn't very good at it (maybe just because I didn't give it much of an effort) and I was disappointed in myself.  I thought, "My friend is so diligent and has so much good will power and self-control.  Why don't I have that?  Why don't I make the time to do this important thing?"  And then you know what I realized?  She doesn't knit because she's convinced it is a morally superior way to nurture her family or because she has the self control to "do hard things".  (She would probably laugh out loud if she knew that's what I was thinking.)  She knits because she likes to knit.  She knits because it quiets her soul.  She knits because that is where she finds peace and relaxation.  She knits for the joy of knitting!

And that, my friends, is why I love to make up my children's math work myself.  Please hear me. When I say "love" that is exactly what I mean.  I don't mean "I feel frugal," I don't mean "I feel diligent" and I don't mean "I feel educationally superior" I mean "I just like doing it".  When the children are in bed and I sit down with a stack of fresh notebook paper and a spreadsheet (just another thing that I love, because I'm a dork like that) it isn't a duty thing.  It just clicks with how I am wired.

The other day, I needed to make an activity for my six year old in sequencing numbers.  She's been working on place value to the hundreds, so I was going to ask her to order these numbers from least to greatest:

102
201
101

But just for fun, I also included

½

This isn't something most first graders would come across in their math books.  But she has been having fun with fractions recently.  At Sunday lunch she was given two cookies.  She carefully bit off half of a cookie and then held them both up together and said "Now I have a mixed number!"  I knew she could handle ordering a fraction in with whole numbers, and she loved it!  It just stirred my soul to get to make those choices myself.

Have you ever bought a used item of furniture or clothing with great plans to pull it apart and remake it just the way you wanted to suit your particular purposes?  And then at some point, did you come to the realization that using the bits and pieces of the pre-made item had actually become more complicated than scrapping it all and starting from scratch?  Well, that's how it was for me with textbooks.  Even after I had made changes in how we did math, I tried using textbook pages (because I still have four half-used consumable textbooks that are sitting on the shelf).  I was surprised at how hard it was to find one page with five problems that fit what each kid most needed to review.  Making the problems myself was just quicker and easier.

And, just to make sure you don't leave this post saying, "She is so good and diligent.  If only I could be a dutiful mother like her" (pardon me while I laugh myself to tears) I want to assure you that it's not all that complicated.  First, it's only five problems a day per kid.  And secondly, remember, I have  a handy spreadsheet (which I did not create myself) that helps me to pick what kind of problems to make.  It might sound intimidating to just make up five math problems.  But what if I said "Write down a three digit subtraction problem that requires borrowing."  You could do that, right?  That's all there is to my job.  It's just that I love doing it!

For me, it was a huge relief to drop slogging through pages of a pre-made textbook and instead much more energizing to make the problems yourself.  So what's the take-away?  The take-away for you is to know how you "tick" and to understand that using that as one of the factors in choosing how to homeschool isn't selfish or lazy - it's just a smart use of limited resources!

For more encouragement on the freedom to choose the method(s) of schooling that works for you, definitely read Teaching from Rest or check out Julie Bogart (founder of Bravewriter) Scoping about the "divide" between structured and unstructured learning.

And just for fun, head on over here and check out Mystie Winkler's page on your Homeschooling Personality Type.  You know what mine says?  Here are some relevant snippets:

The ENFJ ... loves to put together a plan just right for her family. 

• Strengths: mentoring, teaching, relationship-investment activities like read-alouds and family vacations
• Struggles: people-pleasing, her own intensity, anxiety and inner conflict
• Style: whatever she feels allows for the best development of her children; she will prefer an eclectic approach that follows her gut.

I don't believe that personality tests are perfect or that they dictate choices.  But it was pretty fun reading through that list and identifying some of my friends and their gifts and loves and seeing that there is so much variety in how we each are wired and how we homeschool.  That's a good thing, guys!!

I don't knit, but she does.  To each her own!

The Good, The Hard and The Ugly

I said early on in this blog journey that I wasn't here to share "answers" but to share the journey, the questions.  Well, today is one of those days where the answers seem very far and outnumbered by the questions.  While Math is in the process of being re-worked and other things are fair game, a new card was tossed onto the table last night.  I was on the Read Aloud Revival forum reading a post from another homeschool mom.  It was titled "Late Reader or something more ..."  In it, the author shared how she discovered her son's dyslexia.  I replied to the thread.

Oh. My. Thank you for sharing this.  My 9, 8 and 6 year old daughters all love to read.  They will curl up and read in a corner just for fun.  They beg to read aloud to the younger kids.  My 10 year old son, not so much.  I have been telling myself all the things you mentioned above.  “Well, he’s a boy.  Let him learn at his own pace.  Some day it will ‘click’ and he will love to read, etc.”  The more I read from your post and the more I read on the website you mentioned (thank you!!) the more I wondered if this wasn’t exactly what we were dealing with.

He was sitting here in the room with me, so I asked him about some of the things I was reading.  This is what he said, “You know how in Chinese, there is one character for each word?  Well, that’s how I read.  I know the shape of each word.  And if I don’t know the shape, I don’t know the word.  Or maybe I try to think of another shape I know of that looks like the shape of that word.”  He also said “When I am reading, the letters seem to fall out of order.  I will read the first part and then when I read the second part, I forget what the first part says.”  When asked if he found reading exhausting, he said “YES!” – not with a tone of complaint, but with a tone of relief that someone finally asked!

On one hand, I am thrilled (impressed, actually!) that he is so clearly able to articulate what he experiences when reading and to help me to understand it.  I feel like it gives me a new direction to consider and that brings a sense of relief and hope. BUT I am also fearful!  I started out this school year SOOO overwhelmed and reading Teaching from Rest (and the Focus and Align class) have been so helpful.  We’ve experienced SUCH a positive change and a relief.  Now, I must admit, I’m fearful about discovering that I have a child who is going to need some mommy-time-intensive help!

But thank you for sharing!  Now I’ve got something new to research and think about. :-/

I have to be honest, this feels very heavy right now.  Very hard.  The work I've been doing to change how we do math, to streamline the process?  Yea, that was an effort to make this job feasible ... not to make margins, not to get free time, just to make it all fit.  I keep telling myself that as the older kids get older they will transition to more independent work, that as new little ones come on to the official homeschooling stage, the older ones will have more ability to work on their own.  I want to do right by Luke.  I want to invest the time needed to help him to read comfortably.  But I also have a 6 year old who is learning to read, and so far I've averaged about 2-3 times a month of actually getting to sit down with her and read one-on-one.

I am tempted to stew right here in this blog post and list for you all of the things that I want to have in our schedule, that I wish were in our schedule that aren't even waiting in the wings right now.  They are downstairs in prop storage somewhere gathering dust.  But I am going to hold off on that for the moment.  In another half an hour Part 2 of the Focus and Align Master Class on the Read Aloud Revival is starting.  Last week (even in the midst of flu) it was such a balm.  Such a welcome relief.  So, trying not to despair as help might be right around the corner.

Snag a Deal?

If you've been thinking about reading Teaching from Rest, may I kindly suggest the audio files?  No shipping charges and they are read by Sarah Mackenzie herself.  (Yes, she is cheerful and perky, but in a fun, friendly, chatting-at-the-kitchen-table kind of way.)  Also, Classical Academic Press is currently offering a 20% off discount (on all of their materials, actually, including this one).  It's only $8 to begin with.  Calculate in the savings and you could be listening to some really encouraging stuff in moments for less than six and a half bucks.

(Use code CAPTY20 when you check out.  It's only valid through March 31, 2016.)

The Teaching from Rest Companion Files are also no-shipping/downloadable files and also eligible for the 20% discount.

I'm not an affiliate.  I don't get any kickbacks.  CAP didn't ask me to say this.

Textbooks and Training Wheels

I wrote the very first post for this blog (with the same graphic) early one Monday morning before the kids were up.  I had a crazy plan.  I had been talking to my dad and my brother some about it.  And I wanted to start documenting it from the beginning.  So I started the blog.  I meant to talk about the training wheels analogy at some point.  And I meant to talk about why I would think about going without textbooks.  And then life kinda happened.  And this whole journey churned up a lot of other thoughts to process that ended up as blog posts.  So, here I am again, back to the start to finish what I began.  What does this blog have to do with training wheels?

We had our first homebirth with the birth of our fourth baby.  While part of me thought "I wish I had done it this way all along!" another part of me wondered if I really would have been up for that.  Perhaps, in God's providence, it was the right thing for me to have a few babies in the hospital before coming across the idea of homebirth.  I feel the same way about going without textbooks.  I haven't even finally decided if this will work for us.  But I feel pretty sure that it wouldn't have worked for me from the beginning (though I am sure that there are plenty of moms out there who take off sans-textbook from the word go).  I needed time to get my balance, so to speak, and, honestly, to mature a little bit.  That is why I use the analogy of training wheels.  I'm glad I learned to homeschool with textbooks.  Now I'd like to try without and see if we can enjoy and manage the freedom (and risk!).

However, I want to be very clear that I didn't choose that analogy because I wanted to set no-textbooks as superior to or more sophisticated than using textbooks.  I don't even see it as something that all homeschooling moms are or should be working towards.  It was just that on that Monday morning, our new experiment felt to me like taking the training wheels of my bike for the first time.  Exhilarating ... yet terrifying!

So many times as I read through Teaching from Rest, I felt like Sarah Mackenzie had reached into my own brain, scooped out my half-formed thoughts and composed them into eloquent, coherent sentences.  Here's one example that applies to this discussion:

Whether or not you purchase open-and-go curriculum doesn't really matter.  You can pretty much forget all the heated discussions about whether you are caving in to school-at-home if you use traditional workbooks or a straight-from-the-box curriculum.  I know successful homeschooling families who use textbooks and successful homeschooling families who eschew them.  I don't think that's a relevant debate to be having if you want to teach from rest and become happy, content, peaceful and effective homeschooling moms.

If I have one point to argue about using textbooks, it isn't that you should or shouldn't.  It's just that you don't have to.  I don't yet  know which camp I will land in.  As this point, I think it likely we'll use textbooks for some subjects and not for others.  But either way, this experiment has been worth it, because I now know that I can decide based on what works best for us!

Flu and Freedom

After Hazel's surgery, Matt got the flu.  And then he kindly shared it with each of us in turn.  I thought I had the worst of it Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  I was wrong.  Tuesday was so bad I had to ask Matt to stay home from work.  Yesterday I was just barely well enough to be the grown-up in charge.  And it was a wonderful day.  Not in every way.  But in some ways of good, long-term importance.

Sarah Mackenzie, author of Teaching from Rest also has a blog and a podcast.  (See ... that's why I didn't want to read her book.  What kind of normal mother of six children can do those things?  Plus in her blog pictures, she looks perky.  And showered.  Clearly she is in super-woman territory and I don't fit in that category.  But I digress ...).  The same friend who finally convinced me to read Teaching from Rest has also been "pestering" (and I use that term in the nicest possible way) me to check out Sarah's podcast.  There is a members-only side of the site that includes author events, extra resources and what she calls "Master Classes".

So, because I was stuck in bed and needed encouragement even more than I needed physical healing (which is saying a lot) I decided to take the plunge.  After all, I am forever grateful that I finally gave in and read Teaching from Rest.  So the chances were good this friend knows me well enough to know what will bless my soul.  I took a Master Class she recommended (and was also taking) called "Focus and Align" and it was UH-mazing.

Sarah led us through several steps in considering our particular family, our gifts, what works for us and what is important to us.  For example, in one of the exercises, Sarah asked us to imagine that our children were sitting down to a meal with friends some 20 years from now and someone asks "So, you were homeschooled. What was that like?"  What words do I hope will come to mind?  What are the things that I most want my children to remember as their experience of childhood and homeschool?

These activities helped to take me beyond the ground-level focus on "math" and "handwriting" and more towards the goals, practices and atmosphere of my home.  We then used this thinking and exploration to create our family "Rule of Six" - six things that are foundational to our family and which we hope to do every day.  Here is how ours turned out.  (And below it are two other prettier versions from my Sarah Mackenzie-pushing friend that she fancied up for me!)

I completed this activity Tuesday evening.  By Wednesday, when I was on my own again with all the kiddos, somehow, "homeschool" seemed more manageable.  If these were the six most important things to do every day, in big, broad brush strokes, then I could adapt them to something I could do from the bed as well.  In fact, we opened our homeschool day by talking about our new "Rule of Six".  The kids were excited.  Tonight at dinner we talked about what we did yesterday and today that involved each item on the list.  It may seem like a small thing, but it reminded this Mama that good, important and grace-infused things are happening right here, every day.  Even on flu days.

P.S. Our assignment was to make up our own Rule of Six and share it on social media, tagged #RARruleof6.  If you want to see what other folks have come up with, check out that hashtag.  What is so beautiful is that they are all different!  There is not one "expert version".  We are each the experts on our own homes and our own children!

All You Need to Know

While Teaching from Rest (and the companion material) has been inspiring my soul and driving my contemplation of why I am doing what I am doing, Math on the Level has inspired contemplation into the how of our homeschooling.  But then it got more interesting.  There has been a fascinating interplay between the two sources.  And it has been this convergence of ideas that has kept me searching and experimenting!

A long time ago I recognized in myself a propensity to create frustration for myself by stewing over what my children should be able to do.  "She is [x] years old!  She should be able to go upstairs and straighten her room without constant supervision!"  "He is in [x] grade!  He should be able to read at a higher level!"  "She should be able to focus on her work for more than [x] minutes at a time!"  "It should not take a [x]-year-old this long to [complete a given task]!"

But where do all these "shoulds" come from?  If I'm honest with myself, they come from the fact that I decide how well I am doing as a mother by comparing myself to other mothers and their children.  Not only is this a shaky and inaccurate way to determine if I'm doing my job well, it fosters an attitude of competition rather than cooperation.  If your kid does worse, my kid looks better, right?  It's hard not to take satisfaction in your failures if they make me look like I have a leg up. And, as destructive as it can be to friendships to compare myself and my children with others, it is far more destructive to my children.

But what if you aren't comparing your children to other real-life children, just to "theoretical" children or "the average child"?  Isn't there some value, you might ask, in knowing what a "fourth grader" should be able to read or in having clear expectations for a "three year old"?  Well, yes and no.

When I taught in a public school setting, it was necessary for someone (in our case the Virginia Department of Education via the Standards of Learning) to organize material by grade level simply to facilitate the division of labor.  If the third grade teachers and the fourth grade teachers both taught Virginia history and nobody covered Ancient Rome, there would be a problem.  It was also useful to have math and language topics arranged by relative complexity to give teachers a general understanding of what concepts were reasonable to teach to a Kindergartener as compared to a fifth grader.

But what if you remove the division-of-labor factor?  What if you are a homeschool mom?  Or, what if you are a parent teaching your child a skill like putting away the silverware, sitting quietly in church or keeping her attention on a job?  Yes, it is still helpful to know what is reasonable to expect at a given age or stage.  But in another sense, it is somewhat irrelevant.

Let's say, for whatever reason, based on whatever statistical or anecdotal evidence, I'm convinced that my child should be further along in math or reading or should be able to sit still in church better than she does.  How much of an impact should that have on what I do today or tomorrow?  Regardless of where you start out this morning, what you should expect from your child today is one day's worth of progress.

In his conversation with Sarah Mackenzie, Andrew Kern said, "To what level has my child mastered this skill?  And what is next?  Nothing else matters."  I tend to agree.  I need to know where my child is.  And I need to know what the next step is in helping him grow.  And that's it.  Yes, it's OK to have a general concept of what you're aiming for.  And it's OK to observe how your child compares to "the average child" as a part of understanding his strengths and weaknesses.  But when it comes down to today, the task is still the same: make one day's worth of progress on the journey.

Math on the Level has shown me a practical way to do both of those things - know where my child is and decide where to go from here - and with less of a focus on the "should" of other children.  I love it when ideas from different venues harmonize!

Anxiety - the Noble Sin

Sarah Mackenzie says that "rest is the virtue between negligence and anxiety".  In the companion journal to Teaching from Rest she asks the reader to consider whether she tends more towards negligence or anxiety.  Mentally I answered quickly "I tend more towards anxiety!"

On the face of it, who would ever wish to be anxiety-prone?  Who wants to be thought of (or to think of themselves as) stressed out?  However (now be honest with me, or at least with yourself) if given the choice, would you rather be thought of as anxious ... or as negligent?

We live in a society that values productivity and efficiency.  Being stressed is a sign of drive and industry.  Being negligent is just plain unattractive.

When we first moved into our current home and people would come over to visit, I would give them a tour.  Matt came to refer to it as the "apology tour".  I didn't want anyone to think that I lacked vision or purpose, so my comments about every room involved making definite statements about what I didn't like about the room and how I planned to change it.  If I couldn't show off what I had actually done, at least I could let everybody know that I was constantly thinking about what I should be doing.  What was missing was a simple contentment with and gratitude for what the Lord had provided.

I've carried over the same attitude to my mothering.  If my kids aren't where I think they should be, if I haven't included everything in our schedule that I feel we should, if other people are accomplishing things that I'm not, at least I can communicate to people that I am constantly tied up in knots about what I'm not doing.  Doesn't that seem more noble than falling short and being OK with it?  Or, put another way, if I criticize myself first, I preempt any chance for someone else to do it for me.

Of course, I wouldn't describe myself (out loud, at least) as anxiety-prone.  I have much more attractive ways of framing my condition.  I care deeply about my children's upbringing.  I take this job very seriously.  I accept my personal responsibility for these decisions and practices.  After all, who could fault me for caring too much?

So, not only did I have to honestly admit that I am more prone to anxiety, I am actually willing to believe that anxiety is the anecdote to negligence.  Let me rephrase that: I am convinced that describing myself as anxious is the anecdote to being perceived as negligent.  After all, if you aren't stressing over something, you must not care too much about it, right?  Truth be told, I think I somehow manage to be both negligent and anxious at the same time!

Another time I'd like to do a follow-up post to share some insights on anxiety from Sarah Mackenzie's interview with Andrew Kern (another one of the items in the Teaching from Rest Companion files).

Letting Go

My mother has always been a master of illustrations and analogies.  I can still vividly recall dozens of picture images she used to explain spiritual and intangible concepts to us as children and even now that we are adults.  Once a few years ago at a gathering of young moms, she used the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish as an analogy for our job as mothers.  There is no possible way we can accomplish feeding 5,000 hungry people (raising our children to godly adulthood) in our own strength.  Instead we must allow him to use our bread and fish (our gifts and resources) to accomplish his purposes.

Sarah Mackenzie uses this same analogy in Teaching from Rest in Part One: Whose "Well Done" Are You Working For? (Please note: Even if you aren't a homeschool mom, please keep reading.  This has nothing to do with homeschooling - really - and everything to do with being a finite human tasked with kingdom work!)

Just like the disciples, I see this huge throng of people to feed - this seeming impossibility.  The shaping of souls and raising of children, the mopping of floors, washing of dishes, bandaging of scraped knees and hearts and worries, the teaching and admonishing and doling out myself.  It's all too much ... I fall to my knees and I cry out to God.  We're a throng of hungry people in the desert, and I'm supposed to feed them. On an ordinary Monday, I am in need of a miracle of biblical proportions.  

It isn't that I have nothing, exactly.  I have my little basket.  I can read aloud pretty well.  I'm good at organizing things on paper.  I can make a decent pot of chili and I know how to push a vacuum.  I love my children with all of my being and I have a real desire to watch them grow to love and serve Him.  I don't really have any idea how I'm supposed to tackle everything ahead of me in this day, this year, this decade when that's all I've got.  It's just a couple of loaves of bread and a few fish. 

Apparently that's all He needs.

As I have contemplated this recently, one thought that came to mind was that the little boy who brought the loaves and the fish had to do something really hard.  Offering his food to the Lord meant letting go of the only thing he had.  He was a hungry person in the desert, too, after all.  He didn't get to hold back on a loaf or two, giving the rest to the Lord for miracle-working.  He had to give it all up.

I don't want to try to read things into this Biblical account that aren't intended to be there.  God doesn't tell us (and if he doesn't, he must have his reasons) how the boy was feeling, if he had much time to contemplate the request or if his parents were there to help him process it all.  The only thing we know is that he gave all his food away, that he (like everyone else) was fed until he had enough and that his letting go was one small part of the unfolding of God's plan.

So what does it look like to "let go"?  Does that mean sitting on the sofa and waiting around for God to work?  Does it mean making no plans or refraining from giving my children any structure or direction?  Does it mean that planning, activity and effort are signs of resistance and rebellion?

I'm still chewing on this thought, still working through what it looks like to trust the Lord with my gifts and resources, to use them to seek first his kingdom and trust that "all these things" will be added unto me.  But one place I have been convicted is my lack of prayer.  (What follows are my own reflections on me.  Apply only as applicable.)

If I'm honest, I have to admit that when I'm up in the morning before the children, I find far more comfort in using a 15 or 20 minute chunk of time to get some laundry started, pay some bills or do something else that gives me a feeling of productivity and a foothold on the day, than I do taking that time to pray.  I don't think that Scripture requires us to pray for 20 minutes every morning or to pray every morning or to pray instead of paying bills or anything specific like that.  However, I do know that my heart usually runs first to "doing" rather than to "trusting".

Sarah Mackenzie writes,

An indispensable part of bringing our basket, prayer puts aside "doing" in favor of "being" and "becoming": being in his presence and becoming more like Him.

It's not that prayer is a twisting of God's arm to enforce the meeting of our desires.  Rather, prayer - handing over my basket to God - is a way for me to acknowledge that it was never mine to begin with and that I'm OK with him using it however he sees fit.  I'll leave you with two more gems from Teaching from Rest ...

Before we attempt to live a day well, teach our children, or tackle our to-dos, first we put the whole thing at his feet.  We beg God to use us to fulfill His purpose, and then we see that every frustration in the day ahead is an answer to that very prayer. [emphasis mine]

We are weary because we forget about grace.  We act as though God showing up is the miracle.  But guess what?  God's showing up is a given.  Grace is a fact.

Why would I not want to start my day by soaking in that truth for a while?

Another Seed Planted

Last summer, just before school was officially about to begin, I was dreading starting back again.  The summer had been lovely.  Freedom.  Flexibility.  Exploring concepts and topics that I loved and, therefore, was enthusiastic about teaching and sharing.  We learned to play the recorder.  We read about the planets and did science experiments.  We studied the geography of the Old Testament.  But now, the ball and chain of "real school" was looming and I couldn't even pretend to be excited about it.  Life seemed to stretch out ahead ... a long, dreary couple of decades of getting out of bed day after day to slog through an exhausting "push" to get kids to do stuff they didn't really want to do.  Ugh.

Now don't get me wrong.  I'm not of the opinion that the "fun-o-meter" is the most accurate measure of the success of our homeschool.  And there is certainly value (much, in fact) in learning how to cheerfully face challenges and do things that are not your cup of tea.  There is benefit in teaching people to persevere and push through.  Mama included.

But there is also value in making careful, informed decisions about how to spend limited resources.  And at this moment in our family (seven children ages ten and under, including a nursing baby) one of the most limited resources is Mama's energy.  To be specific, Mama's cheerful-power - which is exhausted about 15-35% before the end of total energy expenditure.

Enter a chance conversation at church.  The son and daughter-in-law of friends were in town for the weekend along with their several children.  When I passed her in the nursery, I asked how she was doing and, providentially, we had a sincere and heartfelt conversation about the energy expenditure that is homeschooling.

There was too much to that conversation to record here, but the main idea is summarized in the book she recommended.  I got the book, but I didn't read it.  A least not then.  I was secretly worried that it would tell me to do things differently than I was doing them and that I would feel guilty, inadequate, overwhelmed or all three.  Looking back, it turns out, that was pretty ironic.

Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler's Guide to Unshakable Peace by Sarah Mackenzie