Making Priorities When Homeschooling

Music is something that we enjoy and try to work on. It is a fun way to praise God!

   Last week a mother of some of my music students came over for a morning to talk about homeschooling. She has eight children and has homeschooled before but quit a few years ago because it was to overwhelming. She had asked me how we homeschooled at lesson time one week and after I briefly told her she wondered if we could visit more as our method didn't seem quite as overwhelming as what they had been doing before. I was more than happy to share our methods with her. I thought it would be fun to share here some of what I shared with her last week.

Science can happen anytime. What fun when we had a butterfly visit out of season
 and we were able to take the time to learn about it and it's habits. 

  The first thing that I have come to realize is very important is to think through and decide what is really important for your children. Here is what I came up with: My number one priority for them is that they would love God and try to serve Him. #2: That they would love others and be compassionate and seek to share God's love and truth with them. #3: That they would not be afraid of working hard and that they would actually enjoy it. #4: That they would love learning and know how to learn.

   I think it is very important to realize what is truly important to your family because sometimes in the hustle and bustle of homeschool life we can get caught up in trying to get a bunch of workbooks done and the parents are stressed, the kids are worn out and you haven't even focused on the things that are important to you. When I really thought through what we wanted for our kids I started spending a lot more time sharing God's word with them and we lightened up on the workbooks.

We love interesting books about science (not textbooks or workbooks so much.)

  So I think my greatest tip would be to truly figure out what you really want for your children and really focus on that and don't worry so much about the other things. There is no way that we can teach our children everything, we don't know everything ourselves nor does anybody else in this world. So our goal should be to teach them something on a regular basis and to help them learn as
they go on through life.

My dad and Jonathan getting the eggs marked for going in the incubator.

Besides setting goals some other principles that we try to really incorporate into our homeschooling is that Learning happens everywhere. Lately the boys (Aaron especially as he has been reading up on it) have been learning all about eggs and the growth and birth of baby birds. They have been saving eggs and now incubating them to provide our chicks for this year. This is a great learning tool. Embrace the learning as it happens - you don't always have to be the one coming up with the lessons.
 Another thing that I think it really important is having a lot of good books. Well written, fun to read but educational books. There are a lot out there but there is also a lot of rubbish and then just boring, dry textbooks too. Have GOOD books for your kids to read!

 Another homeschool highlight in our house this week was when some reporters came from our local paper to interview Mara and Jonathan since they had won some essay contests lately. That was a new and interesting experience for them.

 I hope to write more about this topic later but I guess this will do for now. :-) I would love to hear any homeschooling tips that you might have!