wonder farm is five! sangrias all around! post image

This is me, sitting beside a rooftop pool in Sevilla, Spain, drinking a sangria and reading a very good book. (When Chris paid the bill for our room, he discovered that we had been charged 16 euros for this particular glass of sangria, but I will insist that it was worth it, to be drinking [...]

i offer you a little something different post image

backyard, april 2005 Because I am tired of writing this blog series. I will get back to it, in some guise in September, but for now such earnestness seems tedious. san sebastian, spain, 2005 Because I’m missing photography. Recently I took on the crushing task of uploading every single one of our family’s digital photos [...]

become a writing mentor to your child, part 6: finding meaningful writing for kids post image

Hello, Patricia! I really enjoy your blog. I have printed out various posts to keep in my homeschool library. My two kids are 12 and 9. When I suggested a writing group, they said they were not interested. When I suggested they try NaNoWriMo last November, they were not interested. I regularly ask my 12-year-old to [...]

the periodic table of marvel characters: thoughts on a long-term project post image

Mr. T finished his Periodic Tale of Marvel Characters. I think it’s rather glorious. You can view the project close-up in this scrollable view on my Flickr page. It was a challenge to get all of those characters into one shot. You may remember me writing about the project back in November, after T first [...]

yes!

yes! post image

The brave and lovely Heather Caliri interviewed me for her blog A Little Yes. If you don’t yet know Heather, you really ought to click on over to her blog and read about all the ways she adds yes to her vocabulary, even if it gets her doing little things like, say, moving her whole family [...]

become a writing mentor to your child, part 5: grammar, by ear post image

A few years ago I sat in a coffee shop, preparing for a homeschool conference workshop I’d be giving at the hotel next door, on writing with kids. There was a family a few tables over. They wore conference name tags so I knew they were homeschoolers. The two parents chatted while their son did a [...]