Winter Physical Education

As a homeschooler you know that the world becomes your gym.  Since most of us don't have millions of dollars to spend on our own personal indoor courts we utilize our yards for volleyball, baseball, and soccer; our driveways for running, basketball, and bowling; and in the winter we use our hills for skiing.  This is Eli's third year downhill skiing, but his first where he was able to go both up the lift and down the mountain all by himself.  He has also been cross country skiing through our woods pretty much everyday.  I am so thankful that we live in a state where Winter brings some exciting activities to our physical education activities. 

Here is our chair lift interview for this Winter:

And here is his maiden voyage as an independent skiing machine.

I, for one, cannot claim to teach skiing, but if you want to come skiing with us sometime just give us a call.  We are planning on hitting the slopes at least one more time before the 2013 Winter physical education program ends.

For the Love, Art, and Magic of Poetry

Are you teaching your children about the art of poetry?  I love reading simple fun poems, and wanted to give my boys a little taste of the world of poetry this year.  Last Summer I picked up the book "A Child's Introduction to Poetry".  This book has been an incredible way for me to teach the boys about the different forms of poetry as well as share some classic poems with them.  This is not an exhaustive study on poetry, but for a great overall view from nursery rhymes to the ever-loving sonnet it does a good job.  

The second part of the book also delights us with short biographies and examples of some of the greatest poets.  It starts, appropriately enough, with Homer and goes right through Maya Angelou.  

For any of your aspiring poets I cannot recommend this book enough.  It even comes with a CD for all of you who cannot seem to master the art of reading poetry aloud.  

Get this book, learn some poetry, write some poetry and simply enjoy the art of teaching your children to love the magic of poems.