I miss homeschooling

I don't know if it's that this time of year is always when I did my planning for the next year (which I loved), or the catalogs of fun looking programs arriving in the mail, or my feeling less purpose-since doing laundry and dishes just doesn't feel as meaningful as spending time teaching my kids, but I've sure been missing those days when they were all gathered around me at home. I suppose it's probably all of the previously mentioned reasons, and they've come together to make me feel like I wish I was still homeschooling.

This year has gone very well for the kids, and we've seen some good improvements, so I've been finding myself wondering if I could justify homeschooling for selfish reasons. I've made lists of pros and cons of both, and frustratingly, both options have about the same weight of good and bad. So I asked Jaret to give me his gut feeling on what we should do. He said he kind of thinks we should keep going with public school.

Deep down, I've been feeling the same, but it made me sad. :( I miss those young days doing something purposeful and fun together.

So anyway, I'm trying to think of ways to do that to a smaller degree again. When they've been gone all day, I don't want to make them sit some more, when they could/should be out moving around as much as possible. So I'm thinking of taking over reading at bedtime. I think it sounds fun to read about things from history and fun books in literature. I'm also thinking of doing some fun science stuff and field trips this summer.

These ideas have taken my sadness away. I'm really excited to interact more on this level with them again! If anyone wants to do summer field trips, or has fun science ideas, let me know!