I have two questions for you: How would you define the word lifestyle? How would you describe your lifestyle?
I think to some degree we can all agree that a lifestyle is what describes what you do, how you do and what is involved in what you do and how it contributes to the decisions you make on a daily basis. That’s my complicated way of saying the way you live.
Maybe you only shop organic and so needless to say, you have an organic lifestyle; or maybe you love school and learning and thats all you do and so you have an academic lifestyle.
I, Normel Smith, do not claim to own specific type of lifestyle. But, I will say that one of the main ones I can claim is a family-oriented lifestyle. I dedicate a lot of time and energy in being a wife, mother, sister and daughter.
Homeschooling is a product of that and as I have been learning these days, that too (homeschooling), is a lifestyle. This means learning is taking place all the time in every aspect of our day.
- We can follow a recipe because we know how to count out the proper measurements.
- We know how to pay bills and sign checks for the same reasons and because at some point in our lives we learn how to write.
For a while i’ve been so caught up in the schedules and routines and the nonexistent curriculum that I often got overwhelmed. It was already enough that I had to learn someone else’s profession and be a teacher.
School is so institutionalized in my brain that I forgot that well, my son is only 2 right now and all the skills to be taught in a school setting or learned through play in some shape way or form can be learned doing everyday things.
The key things to be are engaged, involved, observant and most of all an opportunist. When I say opportunist I mean finding everything you do in life as an opportunity for him to learn something new.
Case in point:
“Hey Aaron, let’s wash the paint off this pumpkin, stick in the oven and cut it up so mommy can make anything pumpkin she think of—bake some bread, make some soup, and well your favorite, make some pancakes.”
What are we learning here exactly. If you’re creative enough, the world is your oyster: Washing things and rinsing things off is a basic toddler skill, some science (look what happens when you add water to washable paint or how something goes from dirty to clean), math (this pumpkin is round isn’t it. Its round like a ball or a circle).
Learning never ends. When you go to school, you learn in a classroom setting and then come home and adopt those things into the life you live: one day become an actuary, an anthropologist, a fitness coach, an experimental scientist or a stay at home parent (being a master at simple and not so simple everyday stuff+++).
Whats my point. In homeschooling at this young age, you can inspire an interest in your kid that will carry him to the institutions (even the ones he/she can one day create) of the world. If I ever decided to homeschool beyond 2 years old, that premise would be my daily inspiration to help him grow in that interest.
So does this all mean that I can just “free bird” this thing? Heck No! I’m way too anal for that. I’m taking it week by week and finding inspiration in everyday things to decide on themes and how the important things like alphabet, numbers, colors and so on can play into that.
It’s the way I’m living it.
Happy Trails to me and Happy Trails to you!
Wife to an amazing husband, mother to an exploring toddler and an MPA graduate aspiring to impact the world with encouragement in mothering and in social entrepreneurship.
