Pretty sure my first year homeschooling taught me more about myself than anyone else. I took a strengths finder test in school of ministry and my top two strengths are strategic achiever. It’s not easy let me tell you. Thankfully the good Lord in His mercy to my family made connector my 3rd strength.
I love a good check list and checking this boxes. Let’s get some stuff done, ya know? If you are into the whole birth order thing, my parents were both first borns and major promotors of independence. I am the youngest, however, Dr Leeman says that it cycles back to first born when there is a 4 year gap. I am 4.5 years younger than my next sibling. Now I can swing youngest when it’s convenient.
Therefore, I love worksheets and checklists and PROGRESS. So this year I learned so much about dialing back my need to achieve as I assessed what the true goal of choosing to homeschool was for us.
I poured over books about unschooling and something inside me came alive as I started to value play, read alouds and exploring. One book was about a family living on farmland in Vermont and I was ready to move by the end of it!
I had to undo a lot of my own mindsets about learning. When I started to study the girls, I quickly realized they are always learning. And my goodness, the questions, they are always asking questions.
We still do phonics which I highly value. When I got to second grade at a new school my teacher to discovered I knew NO phonics. She graciously spent time with me after school to catch me up. We do math and language but our workbooks are not the extent of their education.
It seems after all that I am the one who truly had some lessons to learn. 