Life in Harmony with the Seasons

One of the many things I like about homeschooling is the ability to be flexible with the family’s schedule. Granted, there are events that happen at certain times, like sports practices and community classes. But in general, our unschooling lifestyle allows us to live in harmony with the seasons.



This week we had a late-summer heat wave here in southern Maine. While most kids were putting on their fall clothes and boarding the school bus, we spent three days at the lake (one as a family, and two at a friend’s camp with the Maine Wholeschoolers). Yep, three days of swimming, playing Frisbee, having cookouts, laughing with friends, pushing each other off the float, sharing games, sitting by the fire at night, playing ball, and reading. It was fun and relaxing. One of the other parents commented to me, as we watched 13 kids (ranging in age from 10 to 16) happily horsing around in the lake, screeching with laughter, “it’s a shame that homeschool kids have such problems with socialization.”

Although September has arrived, it was still summer: blazing sun, temperatures in the 90s, refreshing breezes that played along the water’s surface told us so quite clearly. Rather than spending the best part of the day in a hot stuffy classroom (two of our schooled friends complained about the lack of air conditioning in their respective schools), we were out there enjoying ourselves. We’re living by the natural cycles of the earth, not by pages on a calendar. Even so, there will be plenty of time for us to achieve our academic goals. The cold and rainy days of November will find us reading aloud as a family, figuring out math problems, and conducting group chemistry experiments. And guess what – we’ll be enjoying ourselves then, too.