‘How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.’
– Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
We all know, deep down, that as parents we are the architects and curators of our children’s lives – and our own. This blog aims to help you put the pieces together to make that life the one you want, for your family.
I focus on the educational aspects, with an emphasis on home education because that’s where my experience is greatest, but I recognise that everyone’s circumstances are different, and what’s right for my family may not be right for yours. I hope that whatever schooling choices you make you will find ideas here to enrich your family’s life. Whether you choose home educating/homeschool, mainstream school, private or alternative provision or mix and match the lot over the years, your family base provides the building blocks for your children’s development and you are key within that.
Here you’ll find quotes, ideas and links to think about, reviews of books and resources that will help you figure out where you want to be and how to get there, and glimpses into how other people do this whole education/parenting/life thing. I won’t tell you what to do, but I’ll hold your hand and ask the questions to help you decide for yourself, and to get there one step at a time.
‘It won’t be easy.
It won’t happen overnight.
So let’s get started.’
- Daniel Pink, Drive
I’m Katie, a home educating mother of four living in rural Wales, in the UK. Since leaving behind the world of maths and software engineering for the rather more unpredictable world of home educating, I’ve read a gazillion books about child development, learning, neuroscience and motivation, and have envisioned a neverending stream of perfect days that happened entirely differently to the ways I intended. Still perfect (except for the ones that weren’t), but more chaos theory than elegant proof….
If you want to read more about what we aim for in our house, start with our story.