The following is a guest post written by Amy Frank of Frankly Journaling the Journey.

The amount of artistic ability I have could easily fit in a thimble – which I wouldn’t be able to draw. When my kids ask me to draw an animal for them, I always persuade them that a rabbit would be best, since I can draw two basic circles on top of each other and add some ears and whiskers and call it done.

But even though I was never able to master any of the actual techniques I learned in art classes, I did understand one or two of the basic concepts, and the one that I found rattling around in my mind recently was the idea of negative space.

If my non-artistic brain understands it correctly, negative space is the space around the actual image in the artwork. It is not meant to be the focus, although clever artists do pay attention to how it affects the composition.

The parallel I draw to my life, though, goes like this: All of the efforts I am putting into raising and educating our children is the main focus of my “art,” and the negative space is everything around us that we are not doing.
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The following post is from contributing writer Kris Bales of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

I‘ve got this great shirt that says, “I homeschool. What’s your superpower?”

It’s become pretty worn-out from regular wear as my homeschool mom uniform. It makes me smile when I wear it because I know that being a homeschool parent doesn’t really endow me with superpowers.

I wish it did, though. I could think of some superpowers that would be awesome to have. [Read more...]

Jamie Martin, editor of Simple Homeschool, also blogs about motherhood at Steady Mom

I want my kids to have a childhood. A living, breathing, mud-between-toes, romping-in-woods, staring-at-the-sky childhood. A secure foundation setting the stage for a secure life.

The gift of childhood. I allow my kids to slowly unwrap it each day within our homeschool.

But as I look around–at influences, at media, at society–I see childhood disappearing, evaporating further with each passing year. Are we all okay with that?

I’m not. For the good of our children, for the good of our society, for the good of the world we need to reclaim it.
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Contributer Amida writes for Journey into Unschooling.

Sometimes I think mothers are born packers.

Starting with that homecoming bag from the hospital delivery room, we have been prepping for our kids’ every away-from-home need.

When my own kids were younger, I had filled the car with all sorts of emergency supplies: emergency diapers, emergency wipes, emergency change of clothes and blankets (to this day, a friend of mine keeps her teenage kids’ baby blankets in the car for emergencies).

We always had snacks on hand or books and toys to keep a little one occupied. These days, I have children ranging from 3-15 and many days which we seem to spend on the road or waiting out a class. Along the way, I’ve learned a few strategies to help get us out the door, fed and occupied. Hopefully, some of these ideas can help you as well!

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