I Spy … Home Education

 

I was observing last night, as my 4yo and 10yo sons read through an I Spy book from the library.

My 10yo son wants to read the poem, then find each thing listed, in the correct order.  There’s a lot of discussion:  if you’re supposed to find three apples, do they have to match exactly, or can one be whole and one have a bite missing?  Do they have to be the same size?  The same color?

My 4yo son finds some things from the list, but he’d much rather pore over the picture and exclaim over each surprise and treasure he finds.  There’s a bear, and a pencil, and a spoon, and a truck, and another truck, and a Santa, and a cat …

I think this is an interesting way to think of home schooling.  A lot of standard school seems to be finding out what needs to be learned to pass the test, and then drilling it to the exclusion of everything else.

Home educating gives you an opportunity to slow down and explore the bigger picture.  In our school so far this year (2 weeks), we’ve been reading about biology, and the Gettysburg Address, and music, and cooking, and Spanish, and French, and computer coding, and algebra, and fractions, and division, and the letter K…just to name a few.  The kids have been observing the birds in the backyard and the Venus fly-trap my 14yo just bought.  We’re going to start reading some Astronomy next week too.

Sure, there are certain things that need to be covered, and we study those basics.  But school is a lot more fun when you can slow down and *spy* a surprise or two along the way!