Did You Know . . .

Homeschooling allowed my children to explore topics that interested them. I had a friend ask me once why I let my kids pick topics to study like bats or otters or bugs. The beauty of letting kids study things that they were curious about is that they learned how to learn. All 3 of my kids are so resourceful. They can find the answer to just about any question in any topic. They can scan reams of material and pick out just what is relevant. They also know how to document their information in an organized way with illustrations. They learned that any topic, any knowledge, has value. Also, when they got to share what they learned with our family they became the expert. Imagine the joy of a 9 year old boy telling his big sisters and his parents stuff they didn't yet know about bats. These independent studies became a regular item on our lesson plans and I was always thrilled to see the end results of their work. The kids looked forward to these assignments because it was a break from math, science, history or English. What they learned about research will be used their entire lives. They may forget that bats use radar to locate food and that some whales use echolocation for communicating but they will certainly know how to find that information when they want to. I learned what made my kids tick, what made them smile, what made them curious and what made them cringe. I also learned not to take seriously the criticism of others.