Early in my homeschooling journey , I remember being obsessed with trying to find entertaining and beautiful unit studies , cutting out countless lap book pieces and printing off lots of “activities . What used to happened most of the time was – my kids at that time 6 and 4 rushing through all my hard work and be ready in less than ten minutes for the next thing.
I used to be exhausted . As more kids were added, it became difficult to maintain this , I didn’t have the time to print or make elaborate studies ..
And then I just realised that I actually need to wisen up and play it much more cleverly . And I did, I started buying the odd workbooks here and there , invested in a few curriculums throughout the years – some worked , some didn’t . But I stopped trying to print out elaborate activities . I cut out our school time time to the most important ( Quran, maths , bit of handwriting and lots of read alouds ) and let my children play for most part . I stopped working so hard .
I stopped searching the internet and Pinterest for the perfect printable . I stopped complicating things and realised that actually simple is often so much better than complex . Any child below the age of 10|11 needs a bit of instruction in reading , spelling and maths . They need a bit of handwriting and dictation or free writing . And let’s not forget – the most important thing they need many many good books available for them to read for their own reading – science , geography, history , nature , people .
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I also learnt to delegate tasks as my children got older and more Independent . I get my 11 and 9 year old to check their own work all the time ( spellings and maths for example )
I remember reading an interview with a homeschool parent a few years back that pointed something so wisely “ My children’s education is only the better for it . They are the ones who are learning , so they are the ones that should be putting in the effort . It is not up to us to spoon feed them regurgitated content and ideas . When we do the work for them , we are stealing that accomplishment from them. So, mamas don’t work harder than your kids.
Let's learn , Mama! 