When homeschool education becomes outdoor school

Daffodilius spring breakius -- The Latin name of the "Spring Break Daffodil" that bloomed in our yard this week.

A few days after it was bone-chilling cold -- seriously, I nearly lost some of the kids on my soccer team I'm coaching to hypothermia at last week's practice -- something wonderful happened. Global warming happened. In Gloucester, Va.

The mercury shot up to the upper 70s/80 degrees range and that's when Julie called a homeschool audible. It was spring break time.

One of the beauties of homeschooling is the flexibility.  School happens pretty much year-round in the Sabo house because we account for weeks like this one when it is just too nice to stay indoors and do school. Everyone has been working hard in school and had earned a break.

So Julie took the education outside, where the learning involved a family working together in the yard and making it fun. I came home from being down at the office earlier this week and found Julie and half the kids in and around one of the big garden beds in the back yard. There was serious weeding going on. And raking of leaves, worm catching and two of the filthiest little boys you could imagine. It appeared to me that Seth and Judah had actually bedded down in the dirt and become one with the soil.

Madeline and Gabe were down in the dirt weeding, Eli, Ezra and Olivia had actually made an obstacle course game out of raking up leaves and putting them in a garbage bag and Seth and Judah were "lovingly" playing with the family of worms they had found and named, "Rudy," "Babe" and "Lovie." Let me tell you, those worms had never felt so "loved."

Our back yard garden of daffodils, irises, tulips and other bulbs is starting to spring forth in its springy loveliness and after being relieved of the weeds clogging it, the mulch is ready to spruce it up. I'm guessing that's a project that's going to start today, when the homeschooling "outdoor school" resumes, Sabo style.