Why I Pulled My Son Out of School (and why I started Little Roots)

My son got in trouble for asking too many questions.

For being curious. For interacting with stories too much. For having energy. For being exactly the kind of kid who wants to know why, and then why again, and then what happens if we try it a different way. The kind of kid who doesn't sit still because his brain won't let him — and why should it?

They called it a problem. So I pulled him out.

Little Roots was born out of that decision. It will serve as my record of what it looks like to homeschool a five-year-old on a working urban farm — the lessons, the jobs, the questions, the mess, and everything we learn while we're doing it. It lives here on the Samaria's Garden blog because the farm is where most of it happens, and because I believe that the land is one of the best teachers there is.

This isn't about rejecting education. It's about expanding what education looks like.

My son waters plants and learns about roots. He helps harvest and learns where food actually comes from. He asks why a worm moves the way it does and we look it up together. He prepares food from our harvest. He has jobs — real ones, not pretend ones — and he takes them seriously because he knows they matter. That's learning. That's science, biology, responsibility, and cultural history all at once, just without a desk and a behavior chart.

What I want for him is simple: I want him to stay curious. I want him to learn out loud. I want him to grow up knowing how to feed himself, how to read the land, and where his people's relationship with that land comes from. I want natural living and natural eating to feel like home to him — because it is.

And if you've got a kid who gets called "too much" — too energetic, too loud, too curious, too everything — I want you to feel seen here too. Because that kid doesn't need to be managed. That kid needs room.

Little Roots is the room.

We'll do farm projects together. Cook from the harvest. Learn plant science in ways a five-year-old brain can actually grab onto. And we'll talk about the stories behind what we grow — who cultivated these plants, who carried these seeds, what they meant. Because knowing where your food comes from also means knowing where you come from.

This isn't a curriculum. There's no scope and sequence. It's just us, outside, figuring it out — and documenting it so you can too.

Come grow with us.

Support the farm and our homeschool experience: https://buymeacoffee.com/samariasgarden