My "Nugget" for a New School Year

The beginning of a new homeschool year usually brings a cacophony of mixed emotions.  I love talking to the newer homeschool moms who are a year or so into their homeschooling journey and still have that infectious excitement about each and every new thing a new grade level brings.  It reminds me of the blessing we have to reach new milestones each and every year with each and every child, even when we’re teaching kindergarten for the 9^th time! 

I was asked recently by a friend who is beginning to start another year of homeschooling what “nugget” I had for her as she heads into a busy year with a couple elementary students and toddlers in tow.  I didn’t really have an answer at that the time, but after starting our first full week with just my two younger students (wanting to get ahead a bit before all the clubs and outside classes with the older kids hit and my days get crazier) I realized how much differently I homeschool these earlier grades than I did 19 years ago. Having the benefit of taking now several kids “all the way through”, I am able to see how everything fits together and how the learning process is so individual and unique to each child.  I have lived through the “this child will never, ever, learn to read” to “will you please put that book down and do your algebra!”  I understand now not to panic when they still don’t know their multiplication facts in 3^rd grade.  I don’t lose sleep over the fact that I am still doing dotted letters for my 1^st grader.  To put it another way:  I’ve learned to see homeschooling as a 13 year journey and not a year by year test.

As homeschoolers we often talk about the fact that we have the ability to tailor our kids’ education to their individual skills and abilities.  And when they excel above the grade defined textbook, we applaud and talk about how successful this all is.  But when they struggle or can’t read the grade defined reader, we convince ourselves we’re inadequate to the task, or there is something wrong with that child.  But it’s in that moment, that moment when they are struggling and can’t do it, that homeschooling is the most successful.  In a classroom situation, everything can’t come to a screeching halt while everyone waits for your child to “get it”.  In a traditional school setting, your child cannot get to the next grade level without being (more or less) exactly where everyone else is.   Not so with homeschooling.  You slow down when you need to (just as you speed up when you need to), and sometimes you just work with the difficulty and wait for it to work itself out in a year or two.

Real life example:  my 2^nd grader.  I am so thankful that God, in His perfect Providence, made him child number 8, and not somewhere in the top three or so.  Writing for this child has been quite challenging.  I’m not talking about putting together meaningful sentences here.  I’m talking about penmanship – the ability to make letters and numbers look anything remotely like letters and numbers.  It was so evident in Kindergarten that he wasn’t ready to write, so we did pretty much everything verbally, and I wrote when needed.  He learned basic phonics and learned to read, but just could not write.  In first grade, I was hoping things would change.   The first half of the year wasn’t much better than Kindergarten.  But then, slowly, I’d write less and make him write more.  If there were three rows of math facts to answer, I’d write the answers for two of the rows (as he gave the answers) and then have him write the last row.  The numbers were still large and sloppy.  It pretty much stayed that way through all of 1^st grade.  So when we started 2^nd grade last week, my plan was simply to continue with me writing some, lessening my writing as time went on.  I was a bit concerned because particularly in math, the space for writing was noticeably smaller, which I figured would be a huge challenge for him.  I was so shocked when I stepped out of the room briefly and came back to see him not only take the initiative to start the assignment, but be able to write it…well!   The picture below shows how he was writing at the end of 1^st grade and the bottom picture was what he did on his own last week.  Why the change?  Simply because he was ready.  Had he been one of the older children, when I was relatively new to homeschooling, I would have been distressed and frustrated over the writing issue.  A distress and frustration he would undoubtedly have felt.  But since I no longer see things in grade-by-grade categories as much as I do a 13 year journey, I had confidence that he would, somewhere in those 13 years, learn to write.  He didn’t feel stressed, I didn’t feel stressed, and now we move on to this year’s challenge:  getting through reading without crying (a subject for another time).

So what’s my “nugget” for homeschooling moms, particularly in the early years?  You have time.  Lots of it.  Your children will get some things faster than others, and most likely, will get some things slower than others.  But they will get it.  Work with their strengths and slow down where they need you to.  That’s the beauty of homeschooling.  If you start at the beginning, you have 13 years to work with.  Looking at it that way makes the journey much less daunting, in that not everything has to be learned on a pre-defined timetable.  Enjoy your child, and this precious time you have one-on-one with him, encouraging and leading him in his weaknesses and propelling him in his strengths.  When he finally graduates, knowing everything he was "supposed to learn", it won't matter that it wasn't until 5th grade he finally mastered his math facts.  But that time and relationship that you built in those years will matter.  Focus on that.

Have a great educationally custom-tailored year!