Friday Findings: A Walk in the Park, "One More Chapter", How to Use AO's Website, and Kids on the Prairie...

I absolutely LOVE Kathy DeVore's essay on simplifying your homeschool!  She explains her philosophy on education.  You will have to divulge your e-mail address to access it, but I think it's well worth it.  You can always unsubscribe after the fact.

Sonya Shafer provides a valuable tip for reading aloud in Stop and Wait...  Our kids are notorious for, "Read more...just one more chapter."  I do occasionally cave in if we're reading for pleasure, but I typically stick to my guns with academic reading.

At Archipelago, Wendi Capehart did a wonderful job of explaining How to use the AO website and books.  If you are new to Ambleside Online, this is an outstanding step by step explanation of their site.  I've been exploring the AO website for years and I even learned a couple new things from Wendi's post.

I started listening to Andrew Kern's "Teaching from a State of What?!" this week.  It's excellent!!  The podcast was one of the audio companions to Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie.   I'm only about 20 minutes in but I highly recommend it so far.

Here's proof of the powerful impact of reading great books aloud.  A while back when my niece was visiting, there happened to be a flat bed wagon in the yard.  The kids decided to "play prairie".  They rigged up bicycles "for horses", loaded their wagon, and "headed west".  It was so awesome!  We also happened to cook out over the fire for dinner that night.  They ate outside and pretended it was "buffalo meat". (grin)