This is school at our house.

School looks like this

for my high school students.

There are two of them.

They are greatly outnumbered.

(Good scholars!)

The lone middle schooler moves

outdoors:  Science, handwriting, math...

with a pumpkin holding down the page.

(That's not dirt on the table...it's paint from 

the time we built a ziggurat!)

After a reading lesson for the kindergarten kid,

the toddler quickly discards her princess dress and sparkly shoes...

 because we watered the carrots so we could pull them and

it was the first nice (not scorchingly hot)

day we've had in a long time

and sometimes little boys (and girls too) just

want to play in the mud.

And their mommy says, 

"Well...why not?"

Today, unlike most days, she can't think of a single good reason.

(She decides to classify it under a "Montessori-type" heading.)

Mud washes off,

first in the wading pool 

and second in the bathtub.

School was "had," 

reading, writing, 'rithmatic included.

And everyone, even the mommy, was very happy.

We - the Johnson Family - wish all of our friends and loved ones

a good school year - full of love, happiness, exitement over learning,

and maybe even a little mud.