Dear Girl, years ago, making perfume. She was about six. 

We are deep into the summer doldrums. This is inside weather, our boredom time of year, the hard part. School kids may be out for summer. We are locked in by oppressive weather. We party spring and fall. Those are our outside glory days. The winter gloaming season and long days of summer's moist firey breath are the slow yawning days of longing where children complain of nothing to do, mothers begin to fret that maybe unschooling doesn't work, and boredom slinks in to the rescue.

Boredom is the bland gelatinous base of discovery. We have a day to fill and nothing much beyond a desire to avoid the car and the air outside. If you can hold off screens just a while, you'll begin to see lovely things happen. A kid breaks out forgotten colored pencils. Library books are read. Lolling around on the couch leads to lovely relaxed discussions, ideas are kicked around, projects spring up. One kid decides to approach a new instrument. The other kid volunteers lessons.

The kids and I decided to begin arithmetic lessons at Khan Academy today. It was fun. It felt exactly like school, if school happened in your living room on your own terms as you were laughing and joking with your family. My presence isn't necessary to the process. But I enjoy being near that kind of learning. Its a thing you can almost hear or feel in your skin like an electric current, when the children engage and begin to soak up new stuff. Today math felt like the combination of a new language and a puzzle to explore rolled into one thing. It seemed sort of fresh and kind and doable. Here is our project for summer, then. Others can call it school, if they like. 

Why shouldn't learning feel good, fresh kind and doable? And why not tackle such a thing when its too hot for much else? October is for the beach! July equals one plus one plus one more exploring inside.