It’s very satisfying to write a post that brings so many of you out for a tea party in the comments! If you haven’t been back to the discussion for the How Do Kids REALLY Learn to Write? post, hop on over. You’ll find fantastic insights and experiences shared there. One of my most essential suggestions [...]

Mr. T is just beginning to type his writing on his own. Warning: some of what follows may sound like heresy to traditional educators. Recently a reader of this blog sent an email asking for advice. She’s a homeschooling mom, and she wrote after spending time with other homeschooling friends, and hearing how they teach [...]

Me, squinting and looking sheepish. I did not write much in 2011. That realization sort of stuns me. I didn’t recognize it until the year began to dwindle and I glanced back. I spent a lot of time last year working behind the scenes of my writing, without actually writing. I futzed under the hood, [...]

Happy new year! I have a post brewing in my brain, but we are off to the beach today, and I can’t get it together. Still, I wanted to get that Christmas tree off of the top of my blog. We de-Christmased the house yesterday; I wanted to do the same here. I leave you [...]

I’ve had half a post written for over a week now. But somehow, cookie-baking, wreath-making, sweater-knitting, gnocchi-shaping, veggie-pickling and Christmas movie-watching have kept that post from getting finished. I thought about simply posting photos of all those acts–a dispatch from Elf Land–but if you’ve seen one artsy, macro peppermint bark shot, you’ve seen enough. Instead, [...]

Dearest H, I know, I know, you told me not to put this on my blog. I understand that you’re nineteen and a college student and all, and being written about on your mom’s little blog could be pretty embarrassing. But really, buddy, who’s gonna know? I don’t use your real name, so anyone googling [...]