Homeschooling

I knew I wanted to homeschool my children before I had them. So when my husband and I became parents, we both knew that our children would be learning at home. Little did we know how much we'd learn in the process or how much fun it would be. You can read more about that in my book Learning At Home: A Mother's Guide To Homeschooling.

My children are grown up now. As I look back on their early years, I am so glad that they were at home to learn. Childhood is gone in the blink of an eye. And we had time to play, go to the beach, read many, many books, and talk.

From Life Learning Magazine Jan/Feb. 2008:

Q: Describe how you homeschooled.

Play was one mainstay of how our children learned. Stories and books were another. I read out loud to various combinations of my children from three to six hours a day broken up into smaller chunks throughout the day. Picture books, chapter books, comic books, etc. were all part of what I read. I read throughout the day as well as at bedtime. It was a delightful way to take a mini-holiday. We’d sit together on the couch or in a big chair and go off to some other place and visit with people who became our friends. Through the stories my husband and I read to our children, as well as the recorded stories they listened to, they learned many things. Books were and are a big part of our life.

From Chapter 2 - "Creating a Learning Environment", Newly Revised Edition Learning At Home: A Mother's Guide To Homeschooling

We in our North American culture have formalized learning to such a great extent (classes for toddlers and preschoolers on how to do everything from singing to working a computer), that it may be difficult to accept that the time children spend “messing around” has any value whatsoever much less an educational value. Yet play, non-adult directed play, is vital to a child’s intellectual growth and creative abilities. In order for us to understand things, we need to have a primary experience of what we are trying to understand. We need something to hang our experience on. La experiencia es la madre de la ciencia. Experience is the mother of knowledge. Cervantes