There are SOOO many ways to do homeschooling, and it's always fun to share ideas. Your experience will be unique because we are all very different with different strengths and weaknesses. The main thing is to keep a positive attitude, one that says, "I CAN DO THIS!"
It is hard to be with your children every day because each day is filled with the trials that come from their humanity and your own! They fight, you get irritable. So first, in our home, the most important thing is to work on character building. If i am the one who is irritable, i need to deal with that issue before going any further. This might mean you have to cancel your plans for the day, and that's okay. If your children are the ones who need work on certain character issues, such as having a happy attitude or sharing or playing nice, work on that first. Character is so important in every area of life.
Then there is the learning aspect of life. My philosophy for young children especially is that learning should always be fun. I never liked school because to me, they took all the fun out of learning. The classes i liked most were the ones that involved learning about what i was interested in. If you are interested in a subject, then it can never be difficult for you to excel in that subject. So i look at my children to see what interests them. For my oldest, as many of you know, it's math. He excels in math because he loves it. He also enjoys reading. My next to oldest really loves reading as well. He can't read yet, but he loves it when we read to him. You can never read to your children too much! To me, "reading is the magic key to take you where you want to be." It's so important to read to them every day if you can. He also loves to create, so he draws pictures, plays play-dough, builds things out of pillows, animals, sticks, whatever he can find. You may think, "That is what you call homeschooling?" Yes, it sure is! These may seem like child's play, but i believe that a creative mind is not something to stunt. You must feed a creative mind, and it will develop into great things in the future!
Caleb recently fell in love with soccer and kept up with all the games in the World Cup. This caused him to want to know where all the countries were located. He has a huge map of the world on his wall, so every night, my husband would show him different countries. He now knows the majority of them! It is amazing how fast they learn when they're interested. Maybe for your child, it's dinosaurs--teach them all about fossils and take them to a museum that has that stuff. Maybe it's robots--let them take apart a radio and use the inside pieces to creat a robot, even if it looks nothing like a robot! Maybe it's food--let them cook in your kitchen and help you every chance you get. The possibilities are ENDLESS. In my mind, who needs a curriculum? (But i know many of you don't feel that way and need something more structured, and that is just fine. Only don't lose the fun in doing it that way! And please share with me your ideas, even if they come from curriculum. Sometimes i really benefit from hearing what others are doing, even if the philosophy is totally different from mine.)
So i suggest to find out what your child really loves, and feed that love with whatever you can.
More practical ideas for all children would include a family story time (the Bible is a perfect resource for this), whether they show interest or not. If you make it fun, they will not want to miss it. For math, for all children, counting is fun. Count pieces of candy as they eat them, count out loud for hide and seek with them. Sing songs that count. When they want you to draw with them at the table, secretly introduce numbers by drawing several animals and counting them on paper. There are so many ways to teach them counting. I love to use flash cards. My 3-yr-old resisted this at first, but i made him follow through with it, and i made sure it was fun, then he actually wanted to do it after he got the hang of it. My oldest always loved flash cards because of the fun pictures. For us, counting and learning what the numbers look like is the first step for math. I don't usually have to force learning things because they think we are just playing a game. That's the secret to my homeschool recipes.
The other important aspect of homeschooling for us is work ethic. Of course, my children don't know about this, but i am again secretly teaching them by making it fun. The boys aren't much for sweeping the floor, as many little girls love to do, but when i pull out the vacuum, they get so excited to do it, especially if there are big crumbs! It is NOT important for them to do a good job when they are small, but it IS important for them to think they have done a good job and for you to praise them all the way. So if they get two crumbs out of thirty, woo-hoo! My boys also started to love doing laundry when they discovered they could get into the washing machine:) One of them gets in the washing machine and throws the clothes at the other one, and it is soooo funny. We all crack up. Then that one throws them into the dryer, closes the door, and turns it on. They love to control the switches. Ours is very simple, and i dry everything, so this isn't a problem for us. They also love to squirt things, so i give them a squirt bottle and fill it with water, give them a rag and off they go! They usually need monitored on this one:) Again, who cares if they don't get all the dirt off the windows? That skill will come one day down the road. Just be sure you are telling them, Great Job!! Tell them what good helpers they are, and then go do it the right way some other time.
In all that we do every day, the Name of the Lord is to be praised, so He is included in every subject. We don't necessarily have an organized time of learning Bible lessons, but they come up because we love to talk about the Bible and what God wants from us as His creation. Don't miss out on this. Don't allow your child to see God as something reserved only for Sundays. Don't make it boring for them. You will know if you're doing it wrong because your child will clam up and not want to hear about it whenever you bring up the subject. You will know you're doing it right if your child is asking you questions and speaking about it at the dinner table occasionally. If you discover you are doing it wrong, don't lose heart; pray, seek for the answers and you will find. Don't give up hope. There are some VERY exciting stories in the Bible. Josiah loves stories about dragons, so i read to him this morning from Revelation, about the "enormous red dragon" in the sky, you know, when Satan fell from heaven after making war with the angels...you might not like to read to your 3-yr-old about dragons, but i believe if it makes him interested in the Bible, then it's a good thing.
Happy learning/teaching to all you mamas out there! May your little ones know that they are making your life richer and happier--you must show them that every day, even when they are not "being good."
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