The weather has only just begun to change, but already, we have embraced autumn with our whole hearts. This week brought us our first taste of cooler weather, with glorious morning fog and golden afternoon sunlight. It’s finally been just seasonable enough to allow— even encourage— and afternoon cup of tea. Thank heavens. And oh yes, the very first handful of leaves has fallen.
I’ve been looking at Jude quite a bit lately as the leaves have started to drift down and have begun pondering this, his last year as a preschooler. While our take on kindergarten is so gentle as to barely be recognizable when measured against the scope and sequence of the classroom version, there’s still the distinct feeling of a shift that happens when that leap is made. There’s no expectation that he’ll be reading by next Christmas or participating in math labs with a grouping of his peers. But there is the bittersweet acknowledgement that his world will be seeded with new ideas and skills and thoughts, and before long, they will take root, grow, and become the foundation by which he blossoms into who he was meant to be all along.
As I’ve been thinking all of this, I’ve been watching Jude. I’ve been noting how he stays a bit closer to the lessons these days, choosing more and more often to stay and be a part of what’s happening than to slip away and spend some coveted solo time with Legos. I’ve been listening to him recite Genesis 1:1-11 with the rest of the kids, even though I never anticipated him learning more that the first verse my memory. And I’ve seen him take on a special fondness for geography. Four year-old Jude can now point to and name nearly every highlight of this fall’s geography new grammar— from Western European countries to European rivers, every continent and ocean, the major mountain chains of Europe, and more.
Once again, I’m struck by the power of homeschooling.
Of simply being present near ideas, and raised in an environment where learning anything—from biographies of great artists to labelling rhyme schemes— is like breathing.
I’m stuck by the fact that my 9 year-old mentors her 6 year-old brother in math not because she is asked to do so, but because she gets so excited about the discovery she just made about perimeter that she has to share it. So out come the Unifix cubes and the Cuisenaire rods (affiliate links), and a sheet of drawing paper and some pencils. And the younger brother huddles close, not because it’s his math lesson, but because someone he loves and trusts says this is thrilling stuff, worth knowing, and relevant to all sorts of real life things, like building forts.
I’m struck by a child who has an innate understanding of how the natural world operates. I’m struck by a deep curiosity, a healthy respect, and a sense of longing and adventure that will define a childhood marked by daily trips to the creek to scoop tadpoles into buckets, and not worksheets outlining the life cycle of a frog.
I’m struck by the ability to speak freely from our family’s worldview, and to not waste precious time and energy countering messages that undermine the Biblical lessons we feel convicted to share with our children.
I’m struck by children who soak in stories well above their reading level, devoid of tv characters and written in a more formal language that, professionals will say, will never ignite in them a love of reading.
I’m struck by children who say, after a particularly glorious day, “I’m going to write a poem about that!”
I’m stuck by the beauty of the one-room schoolhouse model, which makes siblings friends and all ages peers.
I’m struck by a band of five siblings who self-publish their own newspaper, and cut the 4 year-old no slack in illustrating his own story ideas. I’m struck by the compassion I see played out day after day, and the very small rumblings of competitiveness that exist in a group so often in one another’s company.
I’m struck by the richness being lived out at my kitchen table, on my couch, under the canopy of the sky that’s slowly realizing it’s October.
“Homeschooling.” Such an artless name for such an all-encompassing way of life.