Thoughts on Learning

Having grown up in the public school system, most of the ways I view learning and education come from there. Therefore my ideas of how I should home educate my children come from my past in the public school system as well. I have to some degree felt that if I didn't have workbooks or at least some sort of curriculum then my kids wouldn't learn the right things at the right time. At times, I get stressed out by comparing what my kids are learning in relation to the public school children. I also get stressed out if we don't finish our books before we end school or if the kids skip a day in a particular lesson. These are not the reasons we chose to home school. One of the reasons was the freedom in educating our children. But, I need to daily remind myself to not compare what other kids (home schooled or public schooled) are learning and stand in awe of the things my children are learning.

My oldest is quite a reader. He will sit down and read anything. I am just amazed at his comprehension at only eight years old. We have been blessed with the opportunity to live in England for five years for my husband's job. There have been times that I wouldn't have called it a blessing, but now I so cherish the experience it has been for our family. My children have been exposed to so much in our time here. The British History they are learning is incredible. Every place we visit from countries, towns, museums, and castles, I try to buy books that tell about the place or time in history. My children love these books and have read many of them even before I have. I am so shocked sometimes when they will blurt out some fact of British history that was unknown to me. This weekend we did a bus tour of London and really enjoyed it. On Sunday, we visited Windsor to go to Windsor Castle. We weren't able to go in though, because George W. Bush was there having tea with the Queen. How cool is that? We actually saw his helicopter. Anyways, as we were standing around hoping to see the President, we were looking at a statue and my oldest said, "that's Queen Victoria." I am sure he knows more about her than I do. Here I stand amazed at how our children learn and are influenced when we provide them with great books, take them to interesting places and also when we take the time to talk with them about the things we see and read about. They are little sponges.

These are the times that I remember why we are home schooling and that learning occurs in so many more ways and places than I would have ever thought. Just because they aren't using a curriculum or sitting in a classroom doesn't mean they aren't learning.