Today I'm linking up with Sarah at Emerging Mummy for the Practices of Parenting Carnival. Click on over and check it out.
I never intended to homeschool my Agents. At one point I even mocked the whole idea of education at home. Now, however, it has become—in five short months—simply a way of doing things around here. I cannot imagine not doing it.
We're approaching our homeschooling differently this year. Back in September I had grandiose plans of how it would go down: routines, lessons, goals. Oh my! This worked okay for the first few months. Then I just thought one day: What if I let it all go?
What if I started focusing on making better use of our my time instead of specific schedules? What if I stopped worrying about what I could teach her, and concentrated on what excited her about learning? What if I let go of my expectations and let E take the lead?
 |
| Sometimes we climb in a box and pretend it's a pirate ship |
Anyway, I came to this conclusion: I would much rather have her "studying" naturally on her own because she wants to than have her compliantly "doing school" with me because I've forced asked her to.
And I think it will be okay for a while. You know, until she's six.
Thanks for reading and have a blessed day.
I love this idea of following your child's own excitment for learning!
ReplyDeleteI agree - I love the thought of prioritizing excitement over achievement!
ReplyDeleteWe all exceed at the things we enjoy doing don't we? Sounds like a smart way to teach!
ReplyDeleteStopping over from the carnival - http://macattackmondays.blogspot.com/2012/01/following-child.html
I love this! We are Cooperative Learners, too. <3
ReplyDeleteI like that - cooperative learners. Thank you so much!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great example of balance you are! I think you may have to start a cooperative learners movement. ;)
ReplyDeleteTake a look at Thomas Jefferson Education for more folks who think like you seem to (based on this post). The longer I homeschool (7 years now) the more I move away from the drudgery of text and workbooks. I am not affiliated by TJEd other than that I read their books and follow the general philosophy. Their site is http://www.tjedonline.com/
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link . . . I will check it out.
DeleteWe're in our second year of homeschooling. I am totally NOT an unschooler--or at least I thought I wasn't--but we're drifting more and more that way. Real life is interesting, we all love to read, and right now I'm not beating myself up (much) that we're falling off the lesson plan and having more student-led learning.
ReplyDeleteThey're young, they love to learn, it'll be great...right? I hope so, but I'm grateful to see there are other moms experiencing it too!
I think it's "easy" to consider a more flexible method at 5, 3, and 1 . . . we'll just have to see where we end up in a few years. Or if homeschooling works at all for the younger ones. I'm thinking now we may switch to something more formal when they're older, but who knows? Less than a year ago if someone would have told me I'd be homeschooling at all I would thought they were delusion.
DeleteThanks to all of you for stopping by. I'm off to read more carnival entries now . . . as long as the Agents stay asleep, that is.
DeleteI have had more and more people suggest to me to consider an unschooling approach, and the more I learn, the more I like the idea. I think it is absolutely right that learning happens through experiences. Book learning is absolutely great for some things, but experience-based learning is living.
ReplyDeleteYou've given me a lot to think about. And thanks for mentioning this blog carnival - I hadn't heard about it before so now I'm off to check out more carnival posts.
I am definitely more structured as my boys get older in my homeschooling, but I do wish some days I was more lax and easy going about it! I enjoyed reading your post.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of completely child led learning, but we are with an umbrella school and have certain responsibilities with that (like portfolios and such).
ReplyDeleteMy kids are very much self directed learners and I am naturally a self directed learner. If we are interested in something - we learn it. What about those things that are important to learn - that we are not interested in? How do we get those done?
I guess it depends on what you consider "important" to learn? Are you thinking of a general subject (like math) or something more specific?
DeleteOne of my favorite bloggers wrote a few interesting posts on this. Here are two I really enjoyed:
http://www.demandeuphoria.blogspot.com/2011/03/make-sure-they-learn-right-things.html
http://demandeuphoria.blogspot.com/2011/03/things-everyone-needs-to-know.html
Going to go check out your blog now!
I started out the same way. Structure, books, schedule.....and then it fell apart. It wasn't comfortable and didn't feel right. We let it go. We mostly unschool.....though I can see a time in the future when we will probably add a little more structure. But for now, this works. And it's so good to see them learning....and wanting to learn. Thanks!!
ReplyDeleteI can totally see us doing that, too. I think she will enjoy more structure in a few years. She actually loved preschool *because* of the structured days. It's funny, because she'll say things like, "should I go back to school so I can learn stuff?" And I'll tell her she's learning all sorts of great things every day. Then she'll tell me, "no I'm not; I'm having fun!" Ah.
Delete