Learning is a life-long experience that begins from the moment we take our first breath and lasts until we take our final one.
Our homeschooling journey officially began in 1994 when my oldest child was four and we started “pre-school” at home, but in actuality, the journey really began at his birth. Even when he was a little baby, I would sing songs to him, play with him using puppets and stuffed animals, and read aloud to him. By the time he was one, he would toddle to his little book shelf, pick out his favorite books and bring them to me as he climbed up on my lap. I used every opportunity to count things, point out colors, and identify things. Learning is a life-long experience that begins from the moment we take our first breath and lasts until we take our final one.
We have three children who are now 24, 20 and 17. My youngest is about to begin his senior year so we are rapidly drawing near to the “official” ending of homeschooling. When we first began to home-school, I knew next to nothing about it and was terrified at even attempting it to say the least. I did the only thing I knew to do to learn more – I went to the library. I checked out every book I could find on homeschooling (and there weren’t that many at the time) and read voraciously. I was still petrified and not very confident in what I was about to do, so I did what many new, nervous home-school moms do – I modeled our home school after my own experiences in public school. Let me just say that I realized early on (thankfully!) that I was free to change that and tailor our learning at home to what suited us best. There have been many things I have learned along the way these last 20 years and I’d like to share some of those lessons with you in the hopes that they encourage you and perhaps help you to avoid some of the pitfalls we experienced.
Lesson #1 – Have fun! This may sound simple, but it was huge for me. Let me explain. I tend to be a planner which means I plan things out days, months, and even years in advance and my plans are not just written down but tend to be chiseled in stone. Did I also mention that I am OCD which just compounds the problem? I had my homeschool plan and schedule all figured out and, by George, we were sticking to it! The problem was, my son was in kindergarten and he wasn’t having any fun. Even Art class time was very structured. I quickly realized just a few weeks in that all the formality and tight structure for a five year old just wasn’t working. I decided to loosen up! For example, our reading time was cuddle time on the couch and it became our favorite part of the day. If we were really into it, we would just keep on reading as long as we wanted (even if it crossed over into Math time – gasp!). Exploration of the beautiful world around us that God created became a priority and an enjoyable time of learning more about our Creator and the intricacies of His creation. There are some things my son learned during his earliest years of schooling that he still recalls to this day.
Lesson #2 – Break the mold! Again, with my OCD and tenacity for sticking to my plan, it was hard for me to learn that it was okay to do something differently than the way the book or curriculum said to do it. I had to learn to do what works with my kids and that there was no cookie cutter curriculum available that worked for every single child every time. I was free to pick and choose and even change horses in midstream if the need arose. My oldest son learned to read very well in kindergarten, but he had a horrible time with math. He struggled to learn even the simplest concepts, such as addition. We were using a popular curriculum that is advanced and thorough and has books for every subject. The phonics books were a breeze, but my son was quickly getting behind with his math book. I tried to repeat the same lesson on addition day after day, frustrated that no matter how I explained it, or even drew it on the board, my son could not grasp it. I felt the pressure of getting behind and wasn’t sure what to do. After ending another day in tears and frustration, I made up my mind. No more of this math book for us! I took the pressure off of my son and told him that we were taking a break from the books and going to play games instead. I got a Hi-Ho Cherry O! game and we played it day after day, counting the cherries and adding them and subtracting them from our buckets. One day, after about a week of this, my son suddenly looked up in the middle of the game and said, “Mom! I get it! 2+3=5!” I could have wept with joy! Breaking the mold and doing something different worked. Give yourself permission to do the same and avoid the tears and frustration of trying to conform to something that is not a good fit.
Lesson #3 – Every child learns differently and at a different pace. It took a few years of homeschooling before I learned about the different learning styles. There are basically three: visual (show me), audio (tell me), and kinesthetic (hands-on). My oldest is a strong visual learner (like me). Don’t tell us or make us read the 1oo page instruction manual or lesson, just show us and we’ve got it. When I began teaching my daughter, I just assumed she would learn like her brother. Wrong assumption. She was my busy bee that could not be still. She climbed, jumped, wiggled and squirmed constantly. When I would try to teach her, she would always be doodling or coloring, or moving her body if there was nothing in her hands. This used to frustrate me to no end as I would tell her to sit still and pay attention for the 5,000th time. I finally realized that she was a kinesthetic learner and that she needed to move and touch something or do something in order to help her learn better. I began to give her coloring pages as I read her science or history lesson and I would be pleasantly surprised at how much she could recall at the end of the lesson. Spelling was a struggle for her so I took a shallow cardboard box and filled it with colored sand from the craft store. I would let her write each spelling word with her finger in the sand, letting her smooth the sand with her hand in between each one. She loved doing something “hands-on” and it kept her focused. I also had to realize that just because my oldest child learned to read at 5, it did not mean my next child would too. In fact, reading became her frustration and tears subject. I finally realized that pushing her to read before she was ready wasn’t working at all! When I backed off and removed the pressure, she improved. We scrapped the curriculum we were using (see Lesson #1) and tried the Hooked on Phonics program as well as letting her pick out books from the library that she wanted to read. After a few short months, she took off with it and now reads classic literature such as Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Dante for fun!
(Pt. 2 will conclude with Lessons 4-6.)
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