From my column this week: 

A person has to be pretty brave to come and stay with us. The closest thing to the Ritz around here is a couple of crackers that somehow found their way under the couch. Look closer, and you may find a stray flip flop and assorted toys under there too.

Plus, we live in the country, a good distance from any major tourist attractions. I think we’d get more visitors if we lived around the corner from Disneyland. Out in the yard, a visitor may find children chasing lizards, swinging from a tree or cooking up a water fight. Not exactly e-ticket attractions.

I count myself blessed to have a few friends who are willing to overlook the shortcomings of the accommodations and come to visit. Friends from New Jersey recently made the journey out to California and decided to call the Godfrey household home base for an entire week.

“This will be interesting,” my friend told me. I nodded silently. She had no idea.

When she got here, my friend wanted to know abut homeschooling. “How do you homeschool?” she asked. “What do the kids do all day?” We set out for a week of homeschool show and tell.

Lately, I’ve been on even more of a make-it-at-home kick than usual. Authentic learning comes from trying new things. I can usually persuade one or more of my kids to come along and learn with me. Still, I was a little nervous about having an audience all week. Could a casual observer tell we were learning by doing?

Since we had tourists in the house, we had to make a trip to the beach. We couldn’t let our friends go back across the country without a little California sunshine. That looked more like play than like academics, so the kids and I found out how to make yogurt and cheese, a couple of tasks that were new to us.

During the weeklong visit, my kids cracked the books at times. They did worksheets and math problems. Other days, not so much. As we near the end of the school year, we’ve already wrapped up a lot of the areas we want to study formally.

Last year was the first year that we took a long summer break without direct instruction time each day. It was then that Brian and I began to appreciate how much the kids learned on their own through reading and pursuing their various interests. With my friend’s question echoing in my mind, I took a fresh look at our days. I liked what I saw. Learning at home suits us still.

In a few days, we will put aside the school books we still use. Then we will look around and see what summer projects we want to try. We will learn how to make sauerkraut and kombucha because, well, it sounds like fun.

We will plant sunflowers and pumpkins, go camping and try to figure out what creatures would like to eat the mosquito larvae in our mini-pond. I was hoping some tadpoles would do it, but they don’t seem interested. The kids, however, are quite interested in the tadpoles, so I guess they are keepers. The tadpoles and the kids, that is.

Back to the original question: What does homeschool look like? I’d say it looks like fun.

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