City Kids went on a tour of the White House last week, and all I have to say is the Obama's did not come to greet us! Some hosts! :)

Homeschooling is fantastic and has a lot of benefits, but it is not without its challenges. As homeschoolers, we like to customize our schedules, and why not? We have flexibility we would not have with a traditional school, and we can make time for our kids' special interests. But sometimes homeschooling can be a delicate balance of customizing our kids activities and making sure they have a regular group of friends to travel with throughout the week and the year. Some home

City Kids kicked off its Nature Program in Rock Creek Park this week with a tour of Peirce Mill. The kids learned how people ground corn through the ages, first with a rock, then with a hand mill, then, eventually, with large, early 19th century mills like the one in Rock Creek. While there, our ranger referred to the Mill grounds as a plantation; prior to our trip to the Mill, I did not know anything about the Mill, including that it was a former plantation. The Peirce pl

I have learned so much on our homeschool journey, but one of the most significant lessons I have learned is that there are many ways to inspire through teaching that do not include just dumping information into kids. For our World Cultures & Geography program, I signed up to lead a lesson/activity for our unit on Indigenous People in North America, and I wanted to find a meaningful way to convey to our young kids how deeply interesting and varied these cultures are. With al

In City Kids, we celebrate the Indigenous people of North America by learning about their culture, their art, their way of life, and their stories. This past week, we went to the National Museum of The American Indian where Phaedra Siebert, an Art Historian and City Kids parent, guided our kids through a few of the exhibits. Our first stop was "Our Universes," where we talked about the different patterns in some of the clothing and everyday, useful objects in the Lakota and

City Kids has started a new year of World Cultures & Geography, and we are beginning with Indigenous people in North America. This week, we began with a lesson about the importance of horses to the various plains tribes in the U.S. The history of the horse in these cultures is a beautiful one that teaches us how the horse changed the way these cultures lived, worked, traveled, hunted, went to war, and even played. The horse is a worker, a companion, a friend, a teacher, an