Recently I was talking with a newer homeschooling mom. She was feeling bad that it was coming up on the beginning of July and her son still had not completed his workbooks for the school year. They had been through a few family illnesses and unexpected turns of events in their life and schooling just got off. Have you ever felt that way? Like life just got in the way of doing school or at least staying on schedule?
I mentioned the homeschooling laws of our state and also reminded her that there is far more to school than simply the academic aspect, too. She told me she felt she was teaching him more life skills and character building than she had his academics. I brought up that creating a desire to learn within our children is a good investment in their education, too.
Then, we talked about how much of each school book her son had left and in the end, she realized that she was worrying over not finishing because that's how they had viewed doing work. You work until it is completely finished. But that's not how textbooks are designed. Do you remember when you were in school? It seemed like the things you were learning before summer break were the same things that you were learning when you started back to school in the fall, didn't it? The reason for that is because the textbook writers have a built-in remediation to their book's skills and tasks. They actually take into account the fact that students might not have retained everything they learned at the end of the year and work those same skills into the first several lessons of the new school year!
So I reassured my friend that even if they didn't finish, her son would still learn those skills because he would see them again in the lessons of the next textbook.
Try not to get so wrapped up in finishing the book that you forget all the other learning your child is getting, too!
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