Sunshine School

I have a deep love of doing school outside.

I’ve been doing it for years. Not every day and not all day, but sometimes, you just need to take the school books outside, spread a blanket, and rejoice in the fact that homeschooling means not being tied to a desk.

I did this once while we were living in Texas. We brought out the whiteboard and the baby and did school under a tree. Naturally, I got asked if I was running a day care out of my home. No, ma’am, these are all mine. It didn’t dull the shine of school al fresco.

Now, we have a fence around our yard so I only run the risk of sunburn and having our neighbor overhear my stumbling attempts to explain how masses create curves in space-time.

We’ve needed the sunshine a little more than usual as our family has been attempting to get over The Cold that descended upon us last week. The Man has acute bronchitis (although I’m pretty sure he’s had some version of that since January), but the kids and I went down with a niggling cold that I thought we were handling well until I realized that half of the school work I’d (wo)manfully plowed through with the kids last week wasn’t even stuff we were supposed to be doing.

Regardless, all’s well that ends well. And these days we are ending (and sometimes beginning) in the backyard.

I’m taking advantage of the weather as I know that these temperate days will be short lived. Right now, our desert is vacillating between the 40’s and the 80’s…and that feels pretty incredible. In a few more weeks, though, we’ll begin hitting summer temperatures and then we’ll be hanging out in the 100’s until September. I can’t complain, as I’m ready to be back in the pool (and done with school, even school in the backyard) and as the desert is so thoughtful as to cool off every night so I can still run in the mornings without dying from heatstroke.

For now, though, we’re enjoying the cool warmth of the backyard, the return of hummingbirds, the fact that the flies haven’t spawned yet (they were awful last summer), and the hope that my hair, which seems to be darkening with age, will decide to sport sun streaks again.

And we’re enjoying the fact that being homeschooled means that nobody can tell us what to do. Except, of course, for CPS, who, I’m sure, wishes that I actually knew what I was talking about when we attempt to plow through our book on quantum physics. #humblebrag #exceptnotreally

All joking aside, spring is here. Are you taking advantage of it?

I just saw a ruby throated hummingbird (#notatallhumblebrag) flashing its brilliant scarlet feathers at me…so you can be sure that I am.

I think this kid is too, in spite of her oh-so-serious face. She was probably busy thinking about something important like the Civil Rights Movement or the associative law or, possibly, nuclear fusion. You know, because homeschool kids are awesome like that. Especially when you do school with them in the sunshine.