Downhill skiing as homeschool PE for five kids ages 2 to 11 — Fridays on a community slope, the triumphs and the spills, and the shop that gifted us skis.

Turning a Maine lake into a skating rink with the kids — clearing snow at subzero temps, flooding the ice by garden hose, and the science lessons hidden in it.

Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace in Kentucky — the one-room log cabin enshrined in a marble memorial, and telling his frontier-to-president rise to five kids.

Andrew Jackson’s plantation outside Nashville — the house, the people enslaved there, and a complicated legacy told honestly.

Walking five children through Atlanta’s civil rights history — what they understood, what they asked, and what stayed with them.

St. Augustine, Florida with five kids — the Spanish fort, the old streets, and what being first in America really means.

Beaufort and the Sea Islands, where Reconstruction began — how freedpeople started reclaiming the land, and how we explained that chapter to young children.

Plymouth with five kids — the Rock, the cramped lower deck of the Mayflower II, and the fuller, harder story behind the one we tell each Thanksgiving.

Bringing history alive for kids isn’t dates and battles — it’s imagining daily life, from Washington’s rooms at Mount Vernon to the people who worked them.

Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell with five kids — the compromises struck in Philadelphia, and the unfinished struggles they left behind.

Monticello and Montpelier with five kids — the Virginia homes of the first presidents, farmers and lawyers both, and the enslaved households behind the columns.

Two nations, two convict pasts — why Australia preserves its convict history at Tasmania’s Port Arthur while America’s is largely forgotten, with kids.

How literature can supercharge mere humans — teaching poetry and politics to five kids on the road, and why the right words outlast the people who wrote them.

After nearly five years in Australia, we’re back on American soil and setting off on a cross-country road trip to reconnect our five kids with the country, its people, and our roots.