Nature as a Governess
As much good as I have planned for my daughters inside, if the weather is nice, I let them play outside. And even when the weather is not so nice, when it's cold but also dry, I will let them go out if they ask to go out. It isn't just the spring and summer and autumn world that is glorious. The winter world is full of wonders, too. And winter must teach them something of hope. They see that the same tree that looked so dead comes back to life and even blooms and bares fruit in another season. It's a priority for us to have leisure time for simply being outside, so I haven't over-scheduled our lives. We have piano lessons and co-op in our week. If we had other places to be all the time, we'd need to be inside doing schoolwork so we could "get it done" before we had to go, go, go. So we have learned from experience and we are making the conscious choice to limit enrichment extracurriculars for this instead, the ability to simply play outside as an en