I fell in to a trap, eyes wide open. I am suddenly Rabbit instead of Pooh Bear.
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Simple:
Lesson from the flowers: simple is as simple doesn’t.
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The summer semester, which is supposed to be wide and open, with a feeling of spacious ease, is feeling a lot like the rest of the year. Instead of having wide swaths of time in which to focus on a few good things, there are many little tasks to check off the list. The trap is one I sprung on myself by going through all of our homeschooling books. An easy, understandable mistake. You see, I found so many cool things I’d forgotten about. OOoooh stickerbook addition, OOoooh grammar bingo, OOoooh chapter book! They are all fun, all promising, all playful. There are simply too many of them.
So it’s time to refocus. Yes, I don’t want them to forget their math. Yes, there are other things I want to touch on. But there needs to be a way to create space. Maybe by letting the mornings be about the important things and then having a few things in the afternoons. Maybe a weekly shift of one week maths/one week other extras while keeping the focus on the creative writing with Sandra and the reading with Tias.
“Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.” Winnie The Pooh
Absolutely excellent reading on this topic: The One Thing Principle
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Space and clutter can’t coexist. Time for a little metaphorical weeding.
Handmade Homeschool 
I so get where you are coming from with this thought, Sarah! I have just recently found my own solution to this issue, which, simplified goes something like this: “Be the owner of your belongings, do not let them own you.” For me, this lesson keeps coming back to me, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
Last autumn I found a Language Arts book I bought for over $40 two years ago with the intention of working through it with my eldest daughter (almost 11). I tried very hard to work it into our life, squeezing it in against everyone’s real desires simply because I owned it, I’d spent (perhaps too much) money on it, because it was taking up real estate on the shelf and had never had the spine cracked so I was feeling guilt and failure over it.
I decided to just let it go. If we don’t use it, I can always give it to another homeschooler, or put it in the hs co-op library. Last week, Erin came to me with the first lesson done without me knowing that she’d taken it off the shelf. She had thoroughly enjoyed it.
This past week has been full of more important lessons in parenting for me; constant reminders that it is so important to be true to myself, and to allow my children to have the time and space to come to themselves in their own way.
Thank you for your thoughtful post. Enjoyable reading, as always 🙂
The photos are breath-taking!
Space and clutter can’t coexist. Hmmm, I like that. So simple, straightforward and clear. I’m just in the middle of packing up my family’s home (and life) in order to move for the first time in ten years and I’ve been pondering similar thoughts all through this. You’ve put all the things I’ve been thinking about and said it in such a succinct way.