I always said I wasn’t going to homeschool. I wasn’t (and still am not) satisfied that homeschooling exclusively gives children the kind of social interactions they need to develop into fully rounded community members. Even in a large family there are some situations that you just can’t duplicate, which is why F is in Junior Kindergarten at a local church school this year.
But…I’ve also been teaching our children since F was about 2.5 years old…and I do really enjoy it. Here’s why:
I can tailor how much time we spend doing “school” to our schedule, and daily needs. Some days we do a little more, some days a little less…most school days we cover Reading, Phonics, and Math at least but often we do more as we have time and interest.
A house full of “velcro-brains” (any info that floats by sticks) means that we can constantly be talking about information and relating different subjects to one another.
I can follow the children’s interests while still making sure that they are following a structured study plan. Sometime this week I hope to post about Su’s skeleton study…for now I’ll just say that she’s been walking around with a skeleton which she has named ‘Mama’!
The school day fits the child instead of the child being forced to fit the school day. F has always been able to sit down and concentrate for long periods, while Su has about a 20 minute attention span at best. While I do want to increase her ability to concentrate I also want to work with her where she is. We do 15 minutes or so of school at a time. It works for her, so I make it work for me.
I can deal with character issues as they arise. We have plenty of places where school work reveals an underlying character issue. I love being able to stop and address that before moving on with academics.
“School” can include almost all of our daily activities. We are always learning and my main responsibility is to provide an environment that stimulates their curiosity and at the same time provide structure to encourage them to “get into” subjects rather than “dabbling”.
They can review much of what they learn to S, to each other, or to W (I can’t wait for him to really talk some of the explanations they give have got to have him completely confused). This practice not only cements information in their minds it also raises new questions for further study.
I have children who think that learning is exciting and important. School is seen as a privilege.
It stretches me to constantly need good explanations for complex questions. I learn a lot through having to say “I don’t know. I’ll have to look that up.”
I get a kick out of watching them ask those same kinds of questions to strangers and watching people try to answer with the carefulness that the children expect. They don’t like easy answers and will keep asking questions until they are satisfied that they’ve gotten a thorough explanation!
It is a never ending adventure and while I’m not sure that we will homeschool exclusively I do know that we will always try to live in a learning environment.
