Traveling has always been a thread in our life together, even before children, Sam and I would fly to Chicago for an evening of deep dish pizza or travel to Ireland for a weekend wrapped in emerald green. Once we began our family it became almost impossible to separate ourselves from our path of wander, since children elude so much wonder wherever they go, our children helped us see our travels in a new way. And to see the world through their eyes, is the most beautiful part of our journey.
Homeschooling wasn't always our plan.After researching all of the private schools the area; after having already ruled out the public school in our neighborhood. We gladly kept him, and our money, home with us, believing that those early years would be strengthened by play, more than they would by rigorous schoolwork, and we gained so many precious hours with our son that would otherwise have been given to someone else. Being stubborn about not restricting our travels to just summer months, gained us the gift of having Liam with us every day, and every day we found ourselves richer from learning and loving alongside him.
Like all parents, no decision for our children goes without heavy thought and prayer, for every decision that we make for them is an investment for their future. Education, especially, being the cornerstone of what their life as an adult will look like. We are not approaching this lightly, it is a huge responsibility to be the educator of your child, as it is to have the responsibility of raising your children to have strong moral character. For us, teaching them the knowledge that comes from books is no less, nor is it more important than teaching them empathy, kindness, forgiveness, grace and love. So for our household, at this time, we learn addition of numbers as well as training them up to exemplify the God that created them. In this moment, this is the right decision for our family , though it might not always be, and when that happens we will faithfully wander the next path that is laid out for us.
We began to realize a few years ago, while planning a trip to Holland, that we could really emphasize our travels into our children's education. Alongside our daily curriculum, we began to research how we can teach the kids about the world around them. Our travels and our schooling have both influenced one another, our trip to Holland brought us to study Van Gogh for example, but on the other hand our unit on insects led us to the Insectarium in Montreal. We research that a quick trip to Detroit to visit friends could also enable us to read a child's biography on Henry Ford, or reading about George Washington might make us pencil in a trip to Mt. Vernon.
With an entire world to travel through, we have a magnitude of information spread out around us, so we are taking down the confinement of a classroom and giving our children the ability to learn in a World School.
Our maps are getting crinkled from constant, overly excited fingers grazing their page. Our heads lay down at night, heavy, filled to the brim with names of faraway cities and the sounds and stories of people that come from them. We hope to share this experience with you, but most of all we hope to share this with our children.
Our Darlings, may you be blessed to stand on many roads in many lands, and may you all, always, be the person you were created to be.
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all four of our darlings in the town of Odense, Denmark
a mama and her baby in Ribe, Denmark
Copenhagen, a stroll after reading Number the Stars, paying our own tribute to the lives lost and the heroes that saved many lives escape to Sweden during WWII
Mariestad, Sweden
