The cupboard under the stairs

We rearranged a few things in the family room last week. For the first time in many years it feels like we've made some significant progress towards decluttering and simplifying our most chaotic of multi-purpose rooms.

One of the results of the rearrangement was the creation of this little nook under the ladder-like stairs up to the loft. It's really just a case of the file cabinet not quite filling the space, but once we added a lamp, a stool and a naugahyde desk surface, it became the perfect little desk for Fiona. Here she is merrily working on some math, though it could be handwriting, drawing or colouring. This kid loves seatwork.

I love the Sonlight catalogue. We have found so many great readaloud suggestions from amongst the pages of the World History Core programs. And we order things from Sonlight occasionally, since they have an inexpensive ship-to-Canada system that gets around all the common glitches. My new copy of the catalogue arrived the other day.

As I flipped through it I wondered to myself -- maybe I finally have a kid who would like a curriculum. Not that I'm about to dive in a buy Fiona some school-in-a-box program at age 5. But maybe, some day, she'll be the one of my children who will want, and thrive on, an organized curricular approach to academics. She consistently and persistently enjoys bookwork. She asks for it daily. She likes working with me. She enjoys being taught things. She enjoys reading, and being read to. She's less perfectionistic, less introverted, than any of her older siblings. She's much more willing to learn "in public", with her mom sitting nearby available to help.

Time will tell. In the meantime, she's enjoying her cupboard under the stairs as she merrily plods through Miquon Math.