How is Homeschooling?

I have been asked this (or similarly phrased) question everyday this week.

"It must be hard work" is the general assumption.

Is it any wonder how hearing that kind of assumption daily might bring the quiet doubt of "Am I doing enough?" to the surface for one in the beginnings of a home educating journey? For we have chosen not to do "school" at home, nor follow a curriculum at this stage, so our days really do not look like we are "schooling".

Our days are filled with a lot of this

and this

sometimes this

and this

The only thing that perhaps resembles "learning" is our reading times daily, and even then the reading is done by me, out loud.

It is times like these, when reading something like this random thought of a friend and fellow homeschooling mum is so heartening. Indeed, it is so helpful to me that I am just gonna quote it here as well:

"TIME...in a hurried world filled with endless amusements, distractons, activities and busyness, homeschooling allows our children time...

Time to just BE...time to read a novel for hours on end...time to dig in the garden...time to sit quietly and think...time to negotiate and form strong relationships with siblings...time to look at an earthworm burrowing...TIME...


I love this quote from RL Stevenson...

Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places--

That was how in ancient ages, Children grew to kings and sages."