Years and years ago I was a nervous homeschool mom. Can you relate?
And then something clicked. I listened to my kids and the next thing I knew, we had become THAT wacky homeschooling family.
I still remember the first time homeschooling really made sense for me. My kids needed to practice narration. They were screaming through their language arts curriculum, feeding off each other. The pace was accelerating to the point that they spent more time taking tests than actually reading. If you have twins and you homeschool, I think you might know what I am talking about. But then again, it is likely that my kids are just oddballs. But they are my beloved oddballs. So it’s alright by me!
I was trying get them to slow down and smell the roses. And then it occurred to me that we could take school lessons outside and actually smell those roses.
And so we did. But being eight years old means that that immense hole in the backyard, big enough to bury a water buffalo, is so much better than roses. And so we all sat on the ground and dangled our legs in the hole and practiced reading and narration.
Of course the dangling the legs thing only lasted about five minutes and then the kids finished up their lessons down in the hole. After that I went to find the ladder to get them out.
It really was the first real relaxed homeschool day I can remember we had.
Since then there have been many, many. But the way we got there way winding and bumpy. Mostly I had to learn to let go of what other people might think and be in the moment with my kids. Share the joy and the wonder.
And then homeschooling really clicked.
Do you find yourself relaxed when you homeschool? Did you start out that way? If you could offer a new homeschooling mom one piece of advice, what would it be?
