Day 13, Thursday, October 1, 2026, of homeschooling my four-year-old triplet nephews began with our familiar opening rhythm of checking the weather, season, and day of the week. I accidentally called it Thursday when it was Tuesday, and somehow both my sister-in-law and I missed it at first. Eventually we caught the mistake and carried on.

The most anticipated moment of the morning was checking on the little bird from our story, The Hedgehog Leaves Home. Her eggs had finally hatched, and there were two tiny fledglings tucked inside the nest. I expected the children to be fascinated, but they were completely unimpressed. My sister-in-law and I had to laugh because their reaction was so different from what I had imagined. Perhaps once the babies grow a little, I will felt a pair of birds to add to our story props.

Our main project was wet-felted pumpkins. The children had seen the pumpkins in our fall basket the week before and asked if they could make their own. We began by cleaning and carding natural wool, which would become the exterior of the pumpkins.

Between projects, there was plenty of imaginative free play. The children continue to love the large wooden play structure from Head, Hands, and Heart Boutique. With fabric draped over it, it becomes a cozy enclosed space large enough for all three triplets, their older brother, my daughter, and an impressive number of toys. Watching their imaginative play develop in this space has been such a lovely part of our kindergarten rhythm.

While the younger children played, my 11-year-old nephew personalized their new acacia cutting boards using my wood-burning tool and alphabet letters. Until now, they have been using everything from broken cutting boards to very oversized ones, so I wanted each child to have one of his own. He did a beautiful job.

One of the most meaningful moments came from a project I had not even planned to continue. My nephew who struggled so much with weaving the week before was the first one to pick it back up. Even while I prepared snack and his brothers played, he quietly kept working. Eventually, his perseverance inspired his brothers to return to their weaving too.

What a difference a week can make.

The weaving itself is far from perfect, and I know I need to modify the project to make it more developmentally appropriate for four-year-olds. But for now, I am choosing not to correct every mistake. The goal is not perfect weaving. It is perseverance, coordination, confidence, and the willingness to try again.

We kept lunch simple and I made the pizzas myself rather than having the children prepare individual ones. Even after cutting back on some activities, we still went more than an hour past our usual ending time.

My sister-in-law helped tremendously by carding the remaining wool, wrapping it around bouncy balls, and tying string around each one to create the characteristic ridges of a pumpkin. The children then wet felted the wool using the familiar process of moving between very warm water and ice water.

This time, instead of wrapping the pumpkins in colored wool, I wanted to experiment with natural dye. We placed the freshly felted pumpkins directly into madder root dye to see if we could transform the natural wool into a warm pumpkin orange before finishing the felting process in the dryer.

We ended our day with The Hedgehog Leaves Home. We are nearly finished reading the book, but we are not finished with the story. Once we reach the end, I plan to circle back to the beginning and tell it from memory using all of the props we have been slowly creating.

Children have such keen memories for stories, so I want to know it well enough to tell it consistently rather than inventing a slightly different version each time.

And then it was time to gather shoes, socks, projects, and little belongings and bring another full kindergarten day to a close.

Head Hands and Heart Boutique

The Hedgehog Leaves Home