School because to us, life is "school" or learning all the time (plus, as an added bonus, we happen to live in an old one room schoolhouse).
My husband and I (mostly him) run a home based business from the shop attached to our home. We have been home schooling our kids since our first daughter was about two years old and I started looking into doing something different. At the time I knew nothing about homeschooling, so it has been quite the continuing journey for us as a family. Now, four daughters and one son later (yes, in that order :) - we are still learning together. Our eldest daughter has since graduated from our home school, completed her college courses and is now working as a Dietary Aid. Nora will be next, graduating in the spring of next year. On this site you will (hopefully) find some insights and info on what it's like to live, work, home school, travel and feed a relatively large family of eight.
Our home-un-school eclectic learning style has always been heavily based on literature which is why we have so many books mentioned. We learn through them, as well as a lot of other resources (i.e. educational games, museums, travelling and of course people we meet and share ideas with). We do not advertise on our blog anything that we have not used or read ourselves. Anything we say we like, we like just because we’ve tried it and enjoyed it. We do get a small commission if you happen to buy from Amazon (which is nice) but I would recommend these books and other resourses anyway since we have used (or are using) them. Anything else is just a bonus - and goes right back into our school budget anyway :). That being said, a lot of these books can be found at your local library - a major homeschooling resource. They can also be bought second hand, which is where a good portion of our own books came from. Plus, we have been at this a long time; we didn't start out with all of these books (or kids :)
All the photographs on this site and on our homeunschool site have usually been taken by myself or Nora. Sometimes Ry, Hannah take a few or even Lil and Quinn once in a while. If so, I try to give credit where credit is due but sometimes I lose track of who took what :)
So, welcome to The Motley School; grab a coffee (or tea) and feel free to browse around for a while.
