Oct 20 2008
Taking it Slow (or Keeping Mom Under Controll)
I’ve found that the hardest part of homeschooling for me has been to pace myself. It’s so easy to get excited about a subject, and want to go wild with it, forgetting that my daughter is barely 5, and maybe doesn’t need or want to know all the gritty details surrounding every innocent question she asks.
For example, when we were learning about frogs, I happend across a science catalog where you could order actual tadpoles and watch them grow into frogs. IT would have been so cool! SHe’d love it. I’d love it. But, other than the cool factor, what would she get out of it that she wouldn’t get if we waited a year or two? Actually, later on, she’d get so much more out of watching a tadpole transform. When she can keep a log of her observations, really notice subtle differences, and understand how what she’d read about actually occus in front of her eyes it will all mean so much more. More than just, “Whoo Hoo, I have a pet frog!”
I even considered getting a frog now, then another one later on in a few years to do the deeper observations with, but the more I thought about it the more I thought that would take away from the specialness of doing it. I really have to learn to pace mayself. We have plenty of learning to do, and many years to do it. We need to remember to play a lot. Sing, read, paint, count, and play some more. She loves science, and asks great questions. I have to remember that we’ll get to all the fun experiments eventually. We don’t need to start on the particle physics doctorate dissertation in kindergarten.
