Dear Laurie,

When your children were under 10 did you take breaks from schooling during the school year or in the summer?

Julie
————-
Dear Julie,

Yes, we took off schooling for the summer as far as I can remember. We do a lot of gardening and animal work in the summer, plus we were in 4-H for many years so we needed extra time for projects. If we had lived in town and didn’t have as much work occupying us, we might not have taken the summer off.

During the school year we often took breaks from schooling, but then, we must define “schooling.” In my mind, schooling encompasses much more than books. When you go to the library, that is schooling because the children are learning how to categorize and organize; when you go to the nursing home, you are teaching them compassion and that is schooling; when you go to Hy-Vee Grocery Store, you teach them thrift and that is schooling; when you go to Crazy Girl Yarn Shop or The Cotton Shop to pick out materials for the next project, you teach them to love simple things and that is schooling.

In addition, we would often take off from formal schooling for days at a time if we were working on a science fair or history fair project. I think children can be more creative if they are given large chunks of time to think about and produce things, rather than small segments of time here and there.

Laurie