Today I am going to post several of our favorite free and not-free resources for homeschool.

But first this: we took today off. Not only are we on day 3 of nothing-is-really-different-except-mom-figured-out-that-she-has-31-extra-hours-in-the-week-now-that-everything-is-cancelled, we are on day 3 of Pops and Miss Bunny gone to Phoenix on a business trip, and we are on day 3 of utter panic…free time makes me panic. It also snowed 6 inches today, which means that I cannot run the tile saw outside, which means this is day 3 of the downstairs bathroom remaining half tiled when it was supposed to be tiled already. All of this is mentally challenging to a person who experiences the world at 2x speed. Everything else generally moves soooooo slowly for me. These three days are like living 10 lives in a day. So today we cleaned a LOT! I scrubbed cabinets and made kids fold piles of laundry. A lot has piled up since September since I put on a pretty significant show in December, and all of that show “stuff” had to be stored in my living room and basement, and then Christmas, and then I got the Coronavirus…I mean…that stranger-than-strange-cold-flu-thing-that-gave-me-asthma-and-is-still-hanging-on-over-2-months-later-but-coronavirus-wasn’t-here-yet-when-I-got-it. I am now a conspiracy theorist who is pretty convinced that Covid-19 has been here since January. 31-extra-hours-in-a-week kind of thoughts here.

So my poor children slaved away helping me today, and we engaged in the educational activity of figuring out how to slack off while mom isn’t looking, and then appearing to be busy when she looks again. Lots of critical thinking and quick mental reflexes needed there. I’d say it was a very productive homeschool day with zero books involved.

And we sent the baby ducks to swim in the bath tub today! Animals are our happy place. Hold it, I take that back. Animals are my, and Miss Magpie’s, and Little Lion’s, and Miss Bunny’s, and St. George’s happy place. They are a necessary part of Popi’s environment, and he has become accustomed to duck poop in the bath tub, mystery substances on the floor that we have not yet spied, and a faint smell of farm inside the house. A strong smell of farm. It depends on how many animals are currently feeding our souls inside the house.

Aren’t they adorable, though? They are the cutest qackie quackers in the universe!

The kids also got to have their piano lesson. Our piano teacher is a tough girl type who is like, “6 inches of snow? Am I supposed to be intimidated by that? Let me know when it’s actually a challenge to get to your house.” She is incredible.

And our sweet neighbor brought the kids slushee supplies! Perfection!

Cute little rebels!

I just sent them outside to sled for a bit before dinner and to get the wiggles worked out. That means that I have about 30 minutes before they all come yelling back in because someone smashed into a tree, or they are being chased by wild turkey, or they are hungry, or someone didn’t wear shoes or gloves or pants or clothes out to sled, and now they are cold.

So welcome to homeschool life. 99% of the time we are all business, offering books and reading and math problems to get done. 1% of the time we scrub the house instead.

So, the way we do homeschool is by cutting to the chase. There are literally thousands of amazing programs out there. We choose Abeka and Rod and Staff as our core curriculum, but we don’t spent time doing much more than math and language arts until high school. What this means is that science and history, while offered in the forms of science and history books, are not hammered and quizzed. I don’t see the point. A child will hardly remember such things if not interested in the subject, and a child will naturally pursue such things if he is interested. I have been right about this. I would rather focus my efforts on math for the development of abstract thought and critical thinking, and language arts for the development of communication and ability to engage in social environments across the spectrum. If you can think critically, abstractly, and communicate well, your academic training has been successful. Here are some of our favorite homeschool links:

Free:

All subjects

Splashlearn – Not normally free, but it’s free now because of Covid-19! Nice!

Bible
Biblegateway – we listen to the audio versions while eating breakfast, generally, and then discuss the readings.

Best worksheets for elementary Bible I’ve found – Super simple and helps them listen to the scripture readings. Pre-school – grade 6
Old Testament
New Testament

Math
Khan Academy

Language Arts
Ambleside – lots of good links and references for each grade level
Project Gutenberg
“Librivox
Anything by Burgess – also available to read on Project Gutenberg grades k-3 like this best
Duolingo

History
This Country of Ours
Ancient history
History resources

Science
Khan Academy
The Science Channel

Not so free:

All Subjects: The Critical Thinking Company I LOVE THIS COMPANY!!!!! There are downloadable e-books, books to order, all kinds of things to buy for the mental enrichment of your kid-o. And charters should be fine paying for anything from this site.

SplashMath

History:
The Story of The World – charters should pay for this (audio and paper book versions available)

What, that’s it? Yep, that’s it. I am a VERY strong believer in not overloading my kids with academics. They read a LOT voluntarily, learn about science and history as interested, and play, work their firewood business, breed ducks, do chores, help me manage our vacation rentals, go riding with their cowboy granddaddy, go on hikes, take music lessons, take dance classes, help train our dogs, work their egg business, help remodel our house, help build the majestic tree house, and so on. They don’t need book work when they have real life to teach them.

And my darlings have come back in and are screaming about who gets to spit toothpaste into the sink first. As Popi always says, raising kids is like having drunk, high, homeless people living with you.

Of course you may sleep with your dog and your duckies in the front doorway! It’s what all normal people do!

Look, even people who have been in the homeschool world for 38 years, either as a homeschooler or as a homeschooling parent, have “those days.” But we have baby ducks that give us so much joy, we have fun snow to distract us from the fact that our dance recital may not happen after all of our very hard work, and we have 4 healthy kids who are incredible people. Even though once in a while they yell about spitting toothpaste. And my house is scrubbed. Kind of.

So, everyone posting schedules, and I posted mine to show that there is a LOT of variation…there is no right way. In no world does one schedule work for all, and no schedule works better than any schedule at all unless you are engaged in a lot of extracurriculars. Do what works for you! And if no formal schooling during this time is what is working, I want to let you in on a secret. As a college professor who teaches philosophy, writing, and critical thinking to mostly publicly-schooled kids from lower to middle class families, I LIVE for those kids who come to my class from a loose home school or an unschooling situation. Yes, that’s right. Why? Because they are WITHOUT FAIL the best prepared to write a paper, the best prepared to handle college-level material, the best prepared to social interact with me and the other students in a respectful, fair, yet firm manner, they are the best prepared to actually master the material. This is one of those things you don’t generally hear about. But now you have heard it. So unschool a little in all of your uncertainty. Offer books, offer art, offer “living math,” offer even worksheets. If your kids look at all of this and walk away to the toy shelf, or want to go outside instead, or just want to sit next to you and talk, DO THAT! Chill, mamas! It’s ok. This time off from formal education will probably be the best thing for their education that can have happened to them.

As an occupational therapist, I can tell you that science shows that children moving vertically, managing high places, swinging, climbing, rocking, rolling, tumbling, etc. before age 12 increases ability to learn exponentially. In fact, when we have kids who have trouble learning, we find that using movement can solve all but the most challenging issues. I have two children adopted from drug-exposure and trauma, and I use movement and outdoor play as a primary means of “teaching” them. If my son with sensory issues cannot hold still to read a book he REALLY wants to read, I send him outside for an hour. If we never get back to the book, no problem. If we do get back to the book, awesome. He is then able to read it. Before we moved to the country, we had a jungle gym and a swing inside our house. We had roller boards, rocker boards, we encouraged climbing to the ceiling however they could…yes, even on furniture. City kids need movement. We planted a sycamore tree in our front yard and let them have at it. We allowed them to climb all fences, run wild in the street (there were hardly any cars), and whatever else their little systems needed. What I rarely did was force them to sit down and “do school.” Now, my kids have always liked math and reading, so I have not had to do much forcing. They do it on their own. However, I don’t force. So how have my kids with issues turned out? Well, I can only tell by my oldest, who is 13. Born drug exposed, extreme prenatal and infant trauma, attachment disorder, etc., she now is reading Socrates, Aristotle, Herodotus, etc. She is socially appropriate to the point where people ask to have her hang out with their kids. She can write papers better than most of my college students. She dislikes science. No biggie. I got her some duck eggs to incubate, and she hatched them and is raising them. She found a book at the feed store that is a scientific look at embryology and reproduction, from the cellular level to the whole animal. She has read the whole thing front to back…because she LOVES ducks. I didn’t even know she bought the book until I saw her pouring over it as we began the incubation process. Boom. 8th grade Live science learned. Physical science? Not a problem. We took the kids to Gold country and collect rocks, took tours and asked questions about how the gold was created, the types of dirt involved, whether volcanoes were involved, etc.. We bought a book on the science of the gold country. She wasn’t interested. But my son was, and devoured it. So will she ever learn physical science? Who knows? Who cares? Which of you, except for those whose profession is physical science, has less joy and is less of a person for not remembering all that physical science you had to take? And if you want to know something about a particular physical science subject, do you not know where to find the answer quite quickly? Hello Google and the public library!

Ok, so that’s my day 2 soapbox. LOL! So I am offering that there is a spectrum of education, and the college kids I teach are much better off with less formal education, and more opportunity to explore their worlds without adults toning down their passion for imagination and learning to think critically.

And read the Little Prince out loud to them during this time. It’s a great book about adults squashing humanity.

Wherever you settle on the educational spectrum, know that there are those of us who support you no matter what. By “us,” I mean professionals who teach the product of all kinds of educational backgrounds. From the ultra-scheduled to the unschooling feral children building blanket forts and using the kitchen table as a platform to dance on, mamas, you are all doing an incredible job!

And, hey, I am living proof that a limited formal education in favor of going outside to play is successful. I was homeschooled in such an environment, had learning disabilities, was allowed to climb and build and be free, and I succeeded in graduating top of my class with two masters degrees and getting a great job. It wasn’t hard, I didn’t have to jump through hoops or test in strange ways to get there. I just had what it took, and I strongly believe it is because my mom let me learn how to learn instead of telling me what I had to learn. So take a deep breath, and let them play if that’s your inclination!

Here is rule #1: DON’T PANIC!!!

So you have found yourself home with these wiggly and wild kids, and some teacher has given you a hilarious mandate: School them! Seriously? I mean, you didn’t go to school for this, you are not getting paid for this, you don’t have the first clue about how to get your kids to sit still for 6-8 hours, you don’t remember how to do your math facts, and what is this Common Core math stuff anyway, and did you mention that you didn’t go to school for this???

Ok, step 1: Make a reward chart. I’m serious about this. Make an reward chart. For everyone in the family, including you. Only include things that you all will actually succeed at. So if you are sure you will succeed at keeping the bathroom picked up, put that on the chart. If you know that your youngest child will succeed at changing out of PJ’s for the day, put that on the chart. If you are only certain that you will get through your first cup of coffee while it is still warm, put that on the chart.

Then add one item for each person that they will have to be intentional about completing. I always start out the year by putting “finish math lesson” under each of my kid’s names on the chart, and “Read one chapter of a book to the kids” under my name on the chart.

Then set about finding the prize for finishing each thing you check off. In our house, this is generally a gummy bear. In some houses it is screen time minutes. We have used the privilege of using mom’s fancy IPad to make a movie after all have finished their chart. That’s a fun one because the kids have to work together to complete their chart for the day and thus build camaraderie among themselves.

Then stick to your guns. The key to successful homeschooling is sticking to your guns, and do what you say you will do, and do so with compassion and with a sense of teamwork. After all, you are all in this together. You will all rise or fall together. Make a family decision to rise together.

And, really, what better way to begin something stressful than to ignore the real issue, schooling kids, by doing a fun craft project where everyone gets gummy bears?

Step 2: Lay out the ground rules. I limit ground rules to 3. These are the ground rules in our house:

1. Work out differences without yelling.

2. Know the good, love the good, do the good.

3. Notice what others are doing and respond appropriately.

Yes, these are very general rules. They are meant to be. Rules in school tend to overwhelm children, I have found, but general statements about how we all should behave tend to be understandable to kids. You get buy-in when the rules are very general. And general rules make them think. What is the good? What does it mean to love the good? Am I doing the good now? What does it mean to work out differences? Does this mean that we never disagree? What is yelling? What kinds of actions would change if I notice a person talking to another person? How would I respond if I need to say something, and nobody is talking at that time? Why is nobody talking? What if I notice another person breaks a pencil accidentally and I have an extra that is sharp? How might I combine these rules to make peace in the school house? Is maintaining peacefulness part of doing the good? We often talk about these rules, not in a judgmental way, but more in a conversational way. My kids know that these are not rules that, if broken, result in punishment. Instead, they result in conversation.

For example: As I write this, Miss Bunny is taking a spelling test, and St. George is coloring a picture for a friend in a long-term-care facility. St. George is not noticing what Miss Bunny is doing. He tells her about his picture as he colors, and she becomes distracted and engages with him. I say, “St. George, notice what Miss Bunny is doing.” He says, “What?” I say, “Notice that she is taking her spelling test. What should you do?” He says, “Ohhhhhh, sorry! I should color quietly until she is done. Then I will tell her about it.” I say, “Yes! Nicely said!”

Step 3: Decide on your schooling space. Some people use their kitchen table. Some people use the play room. Others have a dedicated school room. Others, like our family, live in one bedroom and a very large multi-use space. We use the dining table for subjects the kids need help with, and the kids go to the bedroom for quiet subjects like reading. This works for us. Do what works for you.

Step 4: Figure out what you will do for the week and then do it. Kind of. Most of you were given lesson plans of some sort. Follow them as well as you can, but realize that you may discover some holes in your child’s knowledge, especially if you are like I would be and sort of let the educational process happen without much parental involvement. My mental rule for each of my children is “address their needs without impatience.” So if the lesson is on latitude and longitude, and my child indicates that double-did get multiplication is a challenge, work instead on double-digest multiplication. When they feel comfortable with that skill, let them in on the secret that they actually now know how to do latitude and longitude! They will be amazed and think they fooled the system! That is part of the fun of home schooling. The realization that one skill learned means 10 subjects mastered. If skip counting is their challenge, spend the day learning skip counting songs from YouTube. If addition is their challenge, spend the day learning addition tricks that you can find online.

I said that this step is “figure out what you will do for the week,” and hopefully you noticed that establishing a weekly plan might actually mean that you establish weekly goals, and change them as needed. You have not been the teacher of your child, but you are now. You child was one of 30 kids before. Your child is getting 1-on-1 tutoring now. Your child’s school teacher cannot possibly attend to all of the personal academic needs of the children in the classroom. You child will have holes that you will notice. What a great opportunity to fill those holes!

Step 5: Learn why your child gives you pushback, and give tools to engage. All kids give pushback. There is always a reason for it. It is rarely for the reason your child gives. If your child says, “I am bored of this,” boredom is likely not the problem. Figure out what the problem is. If you child says, “That’s not what my teacher says,” or, “That’s not how my teacher does it,” figure out why your child is saying that. In my experience, there are generally 3 reasons a child gives pushback: 1. Stress over something, 2. Distracted by another desire, 3. They need a break, 4. They need to stand up or be allowed to wiggle while working, 5. They are hungry.

I homeschool 4 children, and 2 give me almost daily pushback. The Lion becomes frantic and skips math problems. I check his math for completeness daily, and he almost always has skipped math problems. He generally needs help by doesn’t want to bug me. And he is constantly hungry. So I check his math and come armed with a carrot/granola bar/yogurt/toast with butter, and his tummy is then filled while we go over why he skipped particular problems. Sometimes he cannot find a conversion chart because he was so hungry. So I help him find the chart. Sometimes he has done 5 of the same type of problem, has gotten them all right, and is sincerely bored by them. So I cross the rest out. He munches away and finishes his math like a champ.

Miss Magpie doesn’t skip things, but she does not let information sink in, so while all questions are answered correctly on paper, she has learned next to nothing. She is VERY goal oriented, and once a job is done, she moves on, never to look back. It is her personality. She is my kid who gives pushback when I quiz her on her knowledge. She doesn’t know the answers, so she has to go back and memorize. She thinks the goal has been accomplished, but it has not been. We resolve this problem by setting the goals as “you can accurately answer 7 out of ten questions mom asks you about the material you read without looking up the answer.” Then I confirm that she has reached her goal when she does, and I praise her for it.

St. George doesn’t want to sit down at all. He is my kid with remaining sensory issues. He does his addition while jumping. He spells his words while jumping. He does his math with many kinds of manipulative, such as marshmallows, dry beans, rocks from outside, sticks from outside…and he collects these things, so he is excited to use them.

I homeschooled Miss Blue for a year while her mama worked, and she gave me a TON of pushback at first. Her biggest issue was “You are not a teacher!” I acknowledged this: “You are right, I am not a school teacher in the way you are used to. I am a homeschool teacher and a college professor. How about this: You teach me something about how you are used to being taught, and I will teach you something about how I teach, and we will figure out what works best between us.” Whenever she gave me pushback, I would ask, “How did your teacher show you this?” She then showed me, and I would try it that way, “Like this?” “No, like this,” “Oh, ok. Yes, that make sense! Thanks for showing me that! Let’s do three problems that way, and then may I show you a trick I teach my kids?” “Ok!” I cannot begin to tell you how well this worked! She was very stressed out that I would teach her in unfamiliar ways, and that is a very valid thing to stress out about! After all, she had been pulled from all that was familiar to her, and I wanted to do what I could to bring something familiar back to her. I don’t know if I succeeded, but she definitely appreciated that I was trying rather than forcing my way on her. It worked out really well after a week or so!

Every kid has their pushback trigger. Figure it out. Work with it. It’s not something to overcome. It is them asking you to treat their personality respectfully rather than smashing them into a box.

Step 6: Stop before you get angry. Impatience is one thing, but when schooling a child, it can very quickly turn into anger. Know that MANY homeschool teacher find themselves fit to be committed on a fairly regular basis at first. You will too. Learn to say, “Let’s take a break!” And that means that you get a break. Go wherever you can to be by yourself, and do whatever you need to do to resume a peaceful mindset. For me, this is creating anything, so I go to my sewing room in the basement. Does this mean that we may not finish the school I had planned for the day? Yes. That is exactly what it means. And that is 100% ok. You have already taught your child more today than he or she would have learned in school in 8 hours.

Ok, that’s enough for today. Have fun with it! Tomorrow I will post a list of links to educational sites we find to be actually helpful, rather than simply games or endless links. There are many scammy sites out there just waiting for you to enter your e-mail address. Be mindful of what you sign up for!

No lightning or ticks this morning. We won this round, Nature. Go back to your corner!

There may be nothing as gratifying to a mother than free hotel breakfast. How much better can life get? Roll out of bed, bra optional, jammies a must, bed hair, kids disheveled, walk down a hallway, dish food onto plates, drink a bunch of coffee, throw away dishes, walk out. It’s basically having a chef and butler. And a maid, because you trash the room you sleep in and then leave the mess for someone else. Swimming, of course, to feed the addiction.

Today we had planned to visit Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands. That was the plan for about 7 minutes. Then St. George accidentally slammed Miss Magpie’s fingers in the door, and one appears to be broken. Nice. 4th road trip in a row when a kid got a broken finger. We don’t even go to the doctor for this any more. But we needed to find a drug store to pick up a splint. Oh, nice, no drug stores for hours. Oh, well. Hotel ice would tide her over.

So we moved the badlands to tomorrow, and that takes up our last spare day. Always plan in spare days.

So, Wall Drugs advertises on I 90 all the way back at the eastern border. Like there are signs for it for HOURS of driving. Great. We will go to that drug store. Bet they have a splint, and more mosquito bite ointment. And more Chlorox wipes. Basic drug store stuff. Oh, looks like they have 5-cent coffee. And ice cream. And a rodeo? And a gift shop. And free ice water. Great. For sure they’ll have a splint. And mosquito ointment. And wipes.

Except maybe they don’t. Because it’s not a drug store. Just in case you are in South Dakota and need anything from the drug store, just stop at a gas station. You’ll find a more expansive drug store selection. The ice cream was ok, but expensive. I couldn’t find the 5-cent coffee. The water wasn’t that great (#watersnobs), and none of the employees knew where the first-aid department was! One employee even said, “It’s not a drug store, its a tourist trap.” I mean, that’s obvious, sweetheart. So put that on the billboards. “Wall Drugs: It’s not actually a drug store!”

We found one splint. The place had one splint. They had no mosquito bite ointment in stock, and no Chlorox wipes. So, yeah. Don’t break a finger in South Dakota.

But we found great metal cowboy cap guns! I’m pretty taken with South Dakota. This state tops our list of places to move to.

We finally made it to Mt. Rushmore. Oh my goodness, I love all five of these crazies!

This is the kid’s second visit to these big faces. Doesn’t it look like Lincoln and Roosevelt are smooching in the corner? This time we took the hiking trail to the museum and learned some interesting facts. This monument was never finished. It was riddled with a lack of funding, and then at the point when it looked like the sculptor could finish it, he died. His son tried to finish, but didn’t. So there it is, heads without chests. Still magnificent. The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, used simple tools like a protractor and compass, to maintain the ratios in the enormous project. This is what it was supposed to look like. The kids have become dissatisfied with hotel pools, so I found a remote swimming hole outside of Hot Springs, South Dakota. The drive was a less dramatic repeat if the storm we encountered the night before, and tonight the kids were unworried about the whole ordeal. After all, we didn’t die last night, we likely wont die tonight.

Little towns don’t have a need to keep eating options available until all hours, so we resorted to this. I think the kids found this to be a feast after so many dinners consisting of camp soup and summer sausages and baby carrots.

We were excited to wake up at beautiful Lake Thompson. This is the lake where Laura and Almanzo took their Sunday drives, the vast lake that drenches this prairie and gives the animals a drink, the lake that gives life and joy to this day. So many sounds and creatures!

This was my view when I opened my eyes.Ticks. All over the tent. I’m going to kill myself. I hear the kids outside, “Mom, there are ticks on us!” Did we die and go to hell? That’s so unlikely, but what other explanation can there be for this? I hit the tick off the tent, 3 more crawl up. The kids are yelling that they can’t keep ticks off of them. I bravely venture forth to rescue my children. Maybe I should just run to the car and leave EVERYTHING here, kids and all? I hate ticks. The tent is covered with them. They haven’t figured out that we are no longer in there. Blood thirsty little demons. They are crawling up my legs and I cant stomp them off fast enough. I decided not to abandon the kids, and i yell to them to get the bedding and shake it out as well as they can. The ticks have burrowed into our fuzzy blankets! I might have said a few sailor-type words, called those things appropriate names. We picked out all the ticks we could see, smashed everything but the tent into the car, meticulous organization be damned, and I threw the kids into their seats. We were all safely in the car, away from those vial offenders. Except the tent….that is our house. There isn’t a place to buy another except for hours out of our way. I dashed back to the tent to save our dwelling. I figured I could tie it to the top of the car and let the ticks fly off all over the highway. It would serve them right! I got to the tent, my legt covered in ticks, saw the tent covered in ticks, brushed my legs clean, and slid to safety inside, zipper shut. Now for knocking all these ticks off. Except they had decided it would be an excellent idea to crawl into the stitching of the netting and get as stuck as possible. These little dudes were out for blood in a big way. To hell with it. Captain is abandoning ship. I know when I’m beat. They can have that tent if they want it so badly!

we left the tock there and reserved a hotel room tonight right then and there.

I hate ticks.

Onward to better things! Like breakfast. We haven’t eaten out for breakfast since Brandon went back home. And he would have loved the diner we found. I loved that the positive reviews included a praise for soup on cold days. The life here is raw and real. People here battle ticks and snow. They must be tough as Buffalo hide, but their hearts are brilliant gold! Speaking of tough guys with hearts of gold, today is a day when we missed our Popcakes!!!Our last pioneer/Little House day, and we are packing in three days worth of experience into one day. No biggie.

We started off at the site of Laura and Almanzo’s homestead. This is where they lived after they were married. Beautiful land.

De Smet has the Pioneer educational activities nailed. The visitors center was a collection of historic buildings that had been brought from their original locations and restored as historical treasures. The town salvaged The Surveyor’s House and hired a perky old-maid type to stand inside and give more information than one imagined one could have about the house. But she was pleasant to listen to. This was a real house, possibly the largest house Laura lived in up to this point in her life. It felt like the little old house I lived in for the first few years of my life – very old and small, but roomy. They knew how to optimize space back then! The bedroom fit a larger bed, which Ma and Pa must have appreciated, Pa could finally lay flat without his toes touching the opposite bedroom wall! Good thing they were so short back then! Laura and Mary and Carrie slept upstairs in real beds. They even had a dresser for their things! The town also salvaged several of the school houses where Laura would have attended or taught school. She was only 16 or 17 years old when she had her own school. Kids like her not only taught all grades, they also had to make wise decisions regarding whether or mot to let the kids walk home in storms. How many made the wrong choice and doomed every last child and themselves to a freezing end, their mistake discovered only after the snow melted enough for the evidence to show through. The harshness of life at that time cannot be imagined in modern times. Pioneers mainly journeyed by covered wagon, but as time went by, and the railroad pushed through, there were more jobs and better transportation, so towns like De Smet flourished for a time. It seems the people still flourish in their souls, even if the towns are financially bereaved.On our tour of pioneer buildings, we visited the house Pa built for Ma in town, the final house for the Ingalls family. Laura was married by the time this house was built, but it was satisfying-to see that after the 10 or more years of hardship, danger, and working to make a better life for his girls, Pa succeeded. Ma lived out her days in moderate comfort from this point on, and this house provided a place to live and an income for the Ingalls girls and for Rose Wilder at one time or another. That Charles Ingalls. I would like to have known him. Friend to Native Americans in a world when the saying was “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” peacemaker among his peers, gave his wife and girls respect, confidence, and a voice in a time when women were property, a man who knew Scripture and lived it, charitable, doting husband and father, optimistic to a fault…a soul that I believe will wake and stand before the throne of God and find a kindred spirit…like King David. Something about facing the simplicity of the dishes overwhelmed me. The proper value of a useful, yet beautiful item, is inestimable.

After following the lives of these pioneer icons for the past 3 days, walking where they walked, feeling the spaces they felt, it was fitting that we visit the place where many of their bodies turned to dust. “Lives well lived” kept repeating itself in my head. Something to strive for. Appropriately seize and occupy every single moment we are given, and attend to what it means to do so.

Our final stop is the Ingalls’ final homestead they farmed while in De Smet. On our way, we passed the Big Slough and Silver Lake. The lake has been drained, but appears to have filled back up. This is a land where lakes (and accompanying ticks near some) are determined to spread and shimmer as they reflect the heavens.

The Ingalls homestead is now owned by a family that has created a holistic pioneer life experience for campers and visitors alike. we encountered no ticks here. We will camp here next time. And there will be a next time. This place is a destination unto its own.Here, they re-created as many ways of pioneer living as possible, and everything was hands-on. And Kittens for everyone! Let’s hope nobody gets ringworm this time. Or flesh-eating bacteria, for that matter. They even have a well for kids to pump water from!And, of course, the Little House TV show house replica. Here, the kids learned how to make braid rugs, how to do laundry on the prairie, and how to make pioneer “fidget spinners.” These were a button on a looped string that can be spun like a yo-yo. It took a few tries, but the kids soon found that they could master this fun game. It took far more skill than a fidget spinner! Then there was that Free Range mom moment when I couldn’t find my 6-year-old, but was pretty sure he was making his own adventures. He had wandered to the carriage house, stood in line, and hitched a turn riding the pony and driving the pony cart. At least I was pretty sure that dark kid in the red shirt way out there was my caboose kid. The gypsy lifestyle forces kids to be independent thinkers. They all got a turn, not only on the pony and cart, but driving the covered wagon to the schoolhouse! Here we learned what a day in the life of a pioneer school kid was like, what they learned, who their teachers were, and what happened to them when they misbehaved. Naughty Miss Bunny got to spend time with her nose on an X on the chalk board, but all of the kids did well in the spelling Bee. When we got home from school, we made the long walk to church, just like the pioneer families would have done on Sundays. This church was saved from demolition, brought to this farm, and refurbished for American children to visit and learn from. My kids enacted a very tedious liturgical service and forced their parishioners to sit still without mentioning that if we wanted to visit the workshop and prairie shanty, we would have to cut to the benediction and hastily ring the church bell. My kids have a unique love for church and churches.

And can you blame them? They have only ever known church as family and peacefulness. I sat wondering about this church. It was simple and beautiful, and it was going to be torn down until it was savedq. So how many other churches like this are available for saving? Where can we get one? I wonder if our priest would appreciate a church like this. Maybe our humble church building is perfect, though. There is something divinely holy about a space built by God’s people to worship Him. You can’t import that kind of workmanship. we didn’t miss the long walk to the homesteaders bunkhouse shanty, and we didn’t miss the workshop. There we learned how to sharpen knives, how to make rope, and how to use the corn husker without getting fingers chopped off, and how to make corncob dolls from the resulting corn husks.

This was a very successful day. Take that, ticks! You can’t get us down!

Well, I checked the weather, and there were severe lightning storms predicted, so a hotel is a smart choice no matter what.

Knowing weather is important in the gypsy life. Lightning can easily turn into a tornado, or severe wind. It can rain so hard that you cannot see the road. Sometimes it’s best to find a place to pull over and wait it out. But all we encountered was moderate rain, and relentless lightning hitting the ground all around us for three hours on our drive. No big deal. My children were in awe and terrified. Sometimes the lightning was so thick that I could see as if it were day. I could see the clouds to the south and over our heads. No tornadoes or wispy clouds, although the misty mass in the sky was solid and determined. The drive was calm and brilliant.

When we arrived at the hotel, there was a line of hopeful guests looking for a room. A pale man was begging for a room. H is wife was sitting in the car frozen in fear. She had screamed and cried the entirety of their two-hour drive. They had driven the southerly rout on the 90 freeway, the wind was so strong that the rain fell horizontally. There was a severe tornado warning on that rout. No room at the hotel meant all those hopeful and terrified drivers lay dripping on couches around the lobby while those of is with pre-paid rooms got our keys and headed to a dry bed. Should we give the terrified woman and her husband one of our beds? I got my kids out of the car and we ran through the lightning into the building to the warm quiet room. The woman and man would need to find their own peace. Our room hardly fit 3 people.

I am thinking about those ticks out there on Lake Thompson. They are not worried about lightning or tornado warnings. They have likely lost interest in our tent without our bodies to feed on.

What an amazing day. This is our song for today. So high on existence in this space at this time right now. Coldplay, Hymn For The Weekend

This morning we packed up and moved out almost before anybody else in camp woke up, and we marched on to Walnut Grove, on the banks of Plum Creek.

Surreal. This is the town that time forgot. We had to drive around and wrangle the GPS to figure out where the dug-out was, but what a great reward! The property is now owned by a farming family, but they maintain the area around the dugout for visitors. For $5, a car full of rowdy kids and a dreamer can imagine a life in pioneer times to their hearts content. The family has planted original prairie grasses around the site to give a better idea of what it was like to live there, and the grass soared above St. George’s head.

The dugout has collapsed, and it has not been restored. A yellow rope outlines where it was, and the path to the creek, the spring, and the footbridge are still there. At least a close approximation. The foot bridge has obviously been replaced.

The air is a bit humid here, but not uncomfortably so, and a hike around the grounds was in order. Wild flowers and mulberries grew thickly along the creek. We saw dragon flies, caterpillars, colorful birds, ate mulberries…i hope they are mulberries…what if they are poisonous???? Well, if I my time to die is now, at least I died in bliss with a belly-full id something wild and sweet. Not a bad way to go.

But we didn’t die. And imagine Pa pitching hay and prairie grasses in this field until he had made a high stack to feed the oxen for the winter. And imagine Laura and Mary in this beautiful summer field, all bright and green and blue, with that haystack inviting them: “Come. Slide down. You were made for the joy of sliding.” It all makes sense as you stand in this field. You can almost hear the grasshoppers chewing every green thing in sight, feel their sharp little bodies crawling ofer your feet.

There is a beautiful homesteading museum in Walnut Grove, including a few articles that had belonged to the Ingalls family. There was an old-timey jail, a replica dug-out (“All five of them lived THERE???” asked Miss Magpie. Yep), a small prairie town the kids could play in (hands on free play is a thing in the Midwest, it seems ❤️❤️❤️), even an old shanty replica.

When we were all played out, we headed to our final prairie life place, De Smet South Dakota.

I reserved a camp site for two nights on Thompson Lake where Laura and Almanzo liked to spend their Sundays while courting. The drive in was breathtaking, water lapping up on the road, crossing the road in some places, swans, ducks, red birds, yellow birds, wild flowers…i am very happy to call this our home for a few days.

We had to swim again this morning. It’s becoming a weird, neurotic obsession. Maybe we should move to Hawaii!

It’s our first Laura Ingalls Wilder “Little House” day. There are really 6 main “Little House” locations. One of those locations is not mentioned in the books. We are only visiting 3 of these locations on this trip. We are not doing this because we are Laura Ingalls fangirls. We are doing this because all but Little Lion dislike reading history, so we are learning history by going, instead. This is just a continuation of our American history for the year.

First stop, Pepin Wisconsin. This was the town mentioned in Little House in the Big Woods, Lake Pepin is a widening of the Mississippi River, and the Mississippi River is the great frozen river the family crossed as they left for Kansas. They listened the next morning as the river ice cracked, and realized the danger they had been in.

The original log cabin is no longer standing. A replica has been built on the same property, though, and it is always open for visitors. You quickly understand what simple living looks like. This cabin is so small. There are three rooms in the cabin, a great room, a bedroom, and a large pantry, and there is also a loft. This is where Mary and Laura slept and played. And there were the rafters where Ma hung peppers and onions on dry from. The only mar on the imagination was the fact that the trees have been cleared, and there farms as far as one can see.

Before we left the cabin, The Lion decided this was a great place to set off fireworks. This is the joy of a California boy in the Midwest. One of the fireworks launched a parachute high into the sky, and the girls and St. George ran to catch it. Bunny got there first.

We couldn’t leave Pepin without visiting the little Laura Ingalls museum in town. Miss Bunny used her money to buy a pioneer girl dress and a slate and slate pencil. She’s drinking it all in.She had to wear the dress to lunch.Heading out of town on this beautiful road toward Red Wing, I am thinking a lot about Robert M. Pirsig. His book helped form many of my philosophical beliefs. I see him riding along such a road, re-visiting old haunts, re-tracing his steps that brought him to cognitive crisis so long ago. I think most philosophers experience such a crisis at some point. They “snap,” and nothing is the same after that. Mine was a process that began when driving these very roads in my college years whole reading Francis Schaeffer, Aquinas, the Tao Te Ching, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald, with a little E. M. Forster sprinkled in. and culminated the moment the pastor of the church I was attending lied to my face in front of the entire congregation, and nobody spoke up to come to my defense. That was my “snap” moment. I abandoned that church at that moment, as I then knew it was a house of thoughtlessness and cowardly evil. Every time I drive these roads, this pure landscape of emptiness and Divine art re-affirms that cognitive process. I used to pull over and lay in these fields alone until the sun set or a lightning storm warned me it was time to go. Pirsig’s character in “Zen” went crazy and underwent shock treatments. I went crazy and attached to a beautiful liturgical tradition full of repentant sinners. I appreciate Pirsig’s tale as a cautionary allegory for those of us with wandering souls. We rode our bikes through Red Wing on our honeymoon. By the time we were here from Seattle, we were all muscle and sun-drenched. Our minds were clear and determined. We already had enough stories together to last a lifetime. We had only been married a month. Brandon knew by that time what he’d gotten himself into, marrying a caution-less, wild adventurer. He didn’t seem to mind too much.But enough of that. We found huge chickens and my divas required pictures with them.

We found a cute campground just outside of Le Seuer, Minnesota. There is a sweet playground here, as well as fireflies so thick, I can imagine veracity in the wizardry of all enchanted lands.

Driving days: two days of driving brought us from Parsippany, New Jersey, through Pennsylvania, ohio, Indiana, up through Chicago, then on through Wisconsin, across the Mississippi River to our hotel in Winona, Minnesota. So lots of phone calls with Popi and unicorn games.But we cannot just drive like normal people. Yesterday I noticed that some of Bunny’s mosquito bites were looking icky. They were like eczema or flesh-eating bacteria. I was pretty sure my baby would die. We found an urgent care, and the very nice nurse practitioner took one look at her and proclaimed that she has ring worm. Excuse me? That is disgusting. So off to pharmacy for tea tree oil and anti fungal cream. I found the cutest little USB diffuser for the car. 6 people in a car smells like the city dump in a heat wave. Oils to the rescue, no matter how much oil dealers hate me for using them that way. We drove straight through, stopping only to eat and take a few naps. Even the stuffies were made little swinging beds. This hotel’s promise of sleep is so welcomed! But first, the girls set up their bed.

Then swimming. And then chasing off drunk men who were catcalling and harassing Miss Magpie. The kids were quite offended by these men, and Bunny marched behind me, nose in the air, to inform the bar manager that there was a pedophile in their establishment. Back at the room, Lion had the patio door barricaded, and he set out weapons, just in case: shampoo bombs and hanger boomerangs. . These kids know how to protect one another! Kind of.

I took my first Uber today. Pops had found a dealer who could look at my car, so I dropped it off at 6:30, I got to use my new umbrella because it was raining, and a nice guy in a car came and took me to my car.

So today was a rest day while we waited for our gypsy caravan to be maintained, and why is that check engine light on?????

Free breakfast at the hotel, showers for everyone, walking to McDonald’s for lunch, buying trinkets at the dollar store so we have some entertainment today, and swimming. Wait, no swimming. Popi was very attentive, and he found us a hotel with a pool and laundry. But it is an empty pool, and the laundry isn’t guest laundry. Its hotel laundry. Oh well. It was a much-needed time of relaxing.

In the end, the check engine light had to do with that annoying, after-market, locking gas cap, so I told the mechanic that I would love him forever if he would get rid of it for me. He did, and the Gypsy caravan was ready. I scored a second Uber trip out of it, this time sharing the ride with a sullen business man who did not want to talk, and a driver who looked like a murderer. Maybe he is a hit man and Ubers as his side gig. Maybe Ubering is his cover. I wanted to ask him, but thought I’d better not get killed since the kids would wonder where I was and would have to endure The Magpie taking charge. She would get them back home safely, I have no doubts. But she would be annoyed that I didn’t consult her before going on a murder adventure.

We took no pictures today. So here is my favorite picture from our trip so far…

NYC day 2! The kids woke up still on fire to go back to the city, and so we went. Miss L just couldn’t get the Statue of Liberty out of her head, and even though my kids had been there just 4 years ago, they were happy to visit again, as well. We were too late to get tickets to go into the statue, but the ferry ride and the island grounds are still worth it. 

Of course, we started the day with Starbucks because I was still really exhausted from yesterday. I didn’t make it until bedtime without a meltdown, but more on that later. Ha! 

The best thing about having my kids is that they aren’t afraid of much. We had to wait a bit for me to finish my coffee before boarding the ferry, so I sat on a nice park bench under a flowery tree and told the kids to beat it and avoid getting arrested for about ten minutes so I could pretend I was on an island all alone for a second. About ten minutes later, just as I was taking my last drinks of magical morning elixir, they came sprinting back looking guilty as all get-out. “What did you do???” “Shhhhh….pretend we have been sitting here the whole time.” They smashed in next to me on the bench and worked on looking really innocent. They couldn’t have looked more guilty. Then about 5 NYC police officers came strutting around the corner. My children are scamps! I pretended not to know whose kids they were, but the police didn’t appear to know they needed to be searching for them, so I figured that the kids couldn’t have gotten into too much trouble, and we waited for the officers to walk off. I was dying laughing inside because it was pretty obvious that they hadn’t noticed the kids at all and coincidentally appeared just when the kids were breaking rules. “We found a secret door to a secret garden! Then we went in and were playing Godzilla, and the police came up!” Wait, what? They showed me. They HAD found a secret door, and it WAS a secret garden. 

I have the coolest kids ever. 

The Hudson River at Liberty Island is so beautiful and busy. People come here from all over the city to watch this river. So beautiful!

So we went to see the Statue of Liberty. It’s never disappointing. This is the first time we have listened to the audio tour, and it is gratifying to find that the kids are old enough to listen to and enjoy that type of educational tool. It was hot today. We bought smoothies that looked far better in the picture than they were in real life, but that didn’t matter. They still hit the spot. I’ve got to keep these kids energized and fed or they descend into despair. 

We also stopped at Ellis Island. This was a first for all of us. I am not sure why I have never thought to stop there, but today seemed like a good day for it. If you had a close relative come through Ellis Island, a visit is in order. My Opa came over on Ellis Island and experienced all of the least desirable experiences a kid could experience there. His father had a terrible heart attack on the boat before landing, so when they arrived, my Opa was separated from his parents and put through check-in alone. Then he and his mom had to wait in the quarantine area of the island while his father was in the hospital there. They were allowed to see him very little, and when he died, they were likely not allowed to spend any time saying goodbye. They immediately had to make arrangements to have him taken to the mainland to be buried. That is what life was like when you arrived with a sick relative who was too sick to be sent back to Europe right away. It would have been frightening and grievous for a child. It occurred to me, then, that I don’t know where my Opa’s father was buried. I imagine it was somewhere in New York City or New Jersey, as that is where my Opa and his mother lived for a decade after. I would love to visit his grave on our next trip to NYC. I had promised Miss Magpie that we could go to Marshals to find her an outfit from NYC, and I promised Bunny and Miss L that we could go back to the Disney Store. Those were the longest few hours of my life. Taking 5 exhausted, hungry kids clothes shopping for a tween is torture worse than death. Maybe not quite that bad, but close. But we had success, and it seemed like a fitting ending to our days in NYC. I think we all find that it was a pretty perfect few days.

Well, one last subway ride, and we had the train to ourselves. There is no better time for a dance party than when you are on a long ride on an empty Subway!
Well, I must be tired because as we packed up the gear to move out of camp, I had a small meltdown in which I stated to my children who have walked over 20 miles in the past 2 days, “You don’t have the slightest idea how exhausted I am.” They all looked at me like “Ummm….pretty sure we walked 20 miles, too.” They are nice to me in these moments.

I have to get the oil changed and the tires rotated on the Suburban tomorrow. Also, the check engine light came on. WHATTT??? So tomorrow will be a business day on this trip. We are in a hotel tonight. That means that all bodies and clothing will get clean all at the same time. Those little things matter on a trip like this.