Real-World Learning

I used to panic every time we pulled into a new town and I realized I hadn’t planned PE.

We’d been on the road for about three weeks. Different campground every few nights. New landscapes every few days. The kids were climbing everything in sight, swimming in lakes, hiking trails they’d never seen, carrying their own packs across terrain that would have been ambitious for adults.

And I was stressed about PE.

I had this mental image of what PE was supposed to look like — a plan, a space, a curriculum, a dedicated block of time. And none of that was happening. So I kept logging the hours as ‘outdoor activity’ instead of PE, feeling like I was fudging the records.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to see what was actually happening.

My children were getting some of the most complete physical education available to any homeschool family anywhere. They just weren’t doing it in a format I recognized as legitimate.