Julie Stauffer

<<I just want to fit school in with life>>

Well.....the problem is that school is soooooo far removed from real life
that it is difficult to reconcile the two. I also have 5 children, ages 11,
8, 5, 3 and 2. Here are the types of things we do:

1. I talk with my kids about everything and I mean everything. I don't
mean lecture or teach them about things. I just talk with them like I would
my husband about things that interest me or them. The current political and
strategic situation our country is in is loaded with stuff. I let the kids
know about stuff I read in the various papers. So......they found
Afghanistan on the globe (which generalized and now the kids play a game to
see who can find the most states in a short period of time), we talk
politics a lot (I'm a pinko and dh is capitalist), we did goods drive for
the refugees and the kids understand I can talk to someone in Pakistan on
the computer and what their writing looks like, etc.. 2 of my kids are
fascinated with the weather forecasts, go figure.

2. The grocery store is great. I send ds to find the cheapest bag of
chips. Send dd to find milk at no more than such and such a price. We
smell and touch everything, weigh it, talk about where it comes from. The
kids wrote the grocery list today.

3. We do 4-H projects. Right now we are breeding rabbits and goats which
takes significant basic math skills for record keeping. Also, doing a
martial arts project.

4. We play games, go for walks, look up weird insects in reference books.
The kids do a lot of the cooking (complete dinner tonight). Some days we
just cuddle on the couch and watch tv. We watch movies set in particular
time periods, television shows in different languages, listen to all kinds
of music, etc..

Julie