During our two-year home school adventure, we (not just Natalie) learned how to do a lot of different things. We spent time making things: a garden, a quilt, recipes, scarves, a schoolhouse, a newspaper. One thing I know is this: making things is fun and it is also empowering. The middle school years are an ideal time to spend time creating things with our hands, engaging with different people, learning new skills, trying different languages, being in nature… How creatively and kindly we approach these years helps us imagine who we might want to be in the world. And it also makes us more open to trying new things in the future.
Here’s a short of list of some of the things we learned how to do at Applewood School:
How to use a microscope
Hot to revise a recipe
How to design and sew a quilt
How to publish a newspaper
How to write different kinds of non-fiction: essay, travel, historical research, how-to, personal essay
How to plant a garden
How to use safety signals while riding a bicycle
How to tap dance, modern dance
How to speak different languages: French & Japanese
How to use a map
How to navigate on a metro or underground system
How to weigh a package and mail it with the correct postage
Check out Natalie’s post “Knit On!”