Yet another homeschool field trip, our last for a while, because I’m off to Baltimore next week. This was FUN, despite several last-minute cancellations bringing our group size down to 13 kids (though this meant we could sneak along a friend’s kid for free!) and horrible weather so we couldn’t enjoy the usual outdoor recess with period games and toys. Most of the kids didn’t know how to spell; with the unschooly bent of most homeschoolers here, the spelling bee the schoolteacher organized was a bit of a joke. Even after practicing the “list words” for fifteen minutes (writing them, reading them, saying them aloud), most of the children were still guessing letters somewhat randomly, like a G in the word “rain.” Naomi Rivka did fine; her word was “ring,” which she spelled on the first try. Despite this, I respected the fact that the parents did not jump in at all to “rescue” their kids from potentially embarrassing situations. Perhaps that’s part of the philosophy – if they feel