Even as I let summer be summer, ideas for fall percolated lazily behind the scenes. How to strike a balance between time at home and time out doing activities and classes? How to arrange our homeschooling so that there is balance between what each child needs? What I need? How to make sure there is plenty of time to just "be"? What projects can we create to support learning? What are my goals? What are we not great at getting to & how can I make adjustments to this?
I live in a community of creative and engaged parents. I am so fortunate. Over the years I've had the supreme pleasure of coordinating and joining rich learning groups. This summer, I talked casually with a friend about writing. What will writing look like this year? What is each child ready for? How would it work to put the children together to write? We loved the idea of combining our shared interests. She offered to organize nature journaling.
It's been a huge success. Sela is loving it. She's worked on it every day since she started it. She asked me it if would be all right for her to fill three journals this year, instead of one. Yes, indeed -- that would be all right. She's full of ideas and questions and plans.
We bought a spiral-bound notebook at an art store and customized! We outfitted it with a ribbon for tying up, covered it with a bird-patterned paper, and on the inside, we added a vellum envelope for specimen collection. (I knew those salvaged envelopes would be great for the right project!) She LOVES it. And I love to see her loving it.
We bought an inexpensive notepad for Linus & covered it. We added a vellum envelope and a rubberband closure -- just right for his little hands. He's enjoying the process, too. Here he had the idea to trace a branch he found! 
love, love, love :)
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