We have been homeschooling for 4 days now.
Yes, you can laugh.
We are definitely at the beginning of our journey and I have no idea what lies in store for us along the way.
This is what it has looked like so far:
We've done a lot of reading, baking, playing, we went to the library and the science museum.
On a side note, did you know that I can take 4 little kids to a museum by myself!? I didn't know that!
What my kids have learned this week:
Fractions have so many practical applications
Triangles have funny names
Maybe learning can be fun... maybe...
They can do a lot more than they thought they could. Jeremiah made carrot cake for goodness sake. all my himself (except for the oven part) and it was delicious.
Reading isn't so bad, as long as you read because you want to read, instead of because your teacher tells you to.
What I learned this week:
I can do a lot more than I thought I could. I look all four of my littles to the grocery store, the library, and the museum all by myself and I didn't loose my mind. It was actually ok.
God is the principle of our little homeschool, I'm just the teacher... actually, I'm the assistant, my kids are the teachers. They teach themselves, I just help them with the hot or sharp things...
If I want my children to learn to use their minds in creative and useful ways, then it all starts with me. I need to show them how.
How I lost my creative spark:
I used to write poetry. It's a little cliche, a teenage girl writing poetry. And I don't know if any of it was any good or not, though I think one of my poems is on a plaque in a nursing home somewhere in colorado thanks to a friend of mind I sent it to when I was 17. But I didn't write so that people could read it, or so that someday I could become a famous poet. I wrote for the sake of creating something that didn't exist before. Just for the sake of making.
I suggested today that Jeremiah design his own creatures made out of food (we were talking about cloudy and a chance of meatballs he watched a couple weeks ago with Greg) His response... "Nah, "
I thought, boy, I wonder why he feels that way, he has so many great ideas and creativity. Then I thought I should teach by example... maybe I should design creatures made out of food... my brains response... "why would I do that?"
I used to make stuff. Paint, draw, dance in my bedroom, write, design, build, tinker. Not because there was a purpose, or an assignment, or a reason... just BECAUSE. Because it was fun. Because it challenged me, because the things inside my head were so much better in real life.
Now I don't even think about those things. My brain doesn't think of creative things just BECAUSE. It only thinks of things that have a purpose, or are on my to do list.
And I think that's how Jeremiah thinks already, and he's only 7.
I want my children to always create, and create well. Not because someone is going to see it, but because they have inside them a spark the urges them to push the boundaries of what they think they can do.
SO, tomorrow, aside from cleaning the house, and reading, and math and phonics, and a science experiment. We're going to dig through the recycling... and make something AWESOME.
Just Because.
