Learning From Sidewalk Chalk

Dear Kids,

My mind has been on education a lot lately. I've been taking a break from homeschool for about six weeks, and it's exactly what I needed to do. It's given me the space I've needed for my brain to wrap around what I want for this next upcoming year. Teacher preparation is a huge thing! A big thing!

While I was sitting on my chair on the patio and going through a few things, I had a much needed reminder. There was Joshua, playing with sidewalk chalk.

He was dumping them out and putting them back in their bucket one by one. When he saw me looking at him, he held up a blue chalk and said, "Blue!!", so proud of himself. I said, "Yes! That's right!" Then he held up another color, yellow, and said, "..... blue??".

I said, "Yellow."
"Yellow!" was the excited reply. And he put it in the box.
He help up another one, red, and said, ".... blue??".
"Red."
"Red!!!" and put it back in the box.

This process went on for about 20 minutes. Taking the chalk in and out of the box. His repetition of putting them back in one by one, while he would hold them up to me and verify the color was right.

By the end of the process, he had his colors down. And since that sidewalk chalk day, he hasn't forgotten all the names of the main colors he learned. He is two years old.

He didn't need me to "tell him" to learn his colors. He WANTED it on his own. He wanted to learn on his own. We forget in our society so much about how FAST children learn when they are young. They love it. They want it. They want the education. They want to know all about the world around them. It's our society that crushes that out of them when we push to fast, too soon.

I've been thinking about Elijah inside this process as well. If he was in school I KNOW he would have already been diagnosed with ADD. He wouldn't sit still for a moment in a school setting. He is so tactile. EVERYTHING he does, he has to experience the touch of it. He learns through his body, not through a traditional school setting.

Homeschooling all of you has been REFINING for me. It is refining everything about me and the way I parent. The way I experience life around me. Most important thing I have had to learn is to just get out of your way. Let you do it. Let you experience it. Let you take charge. Give you the space you need in order to get that done.

More and more studies are coming out about how children must have play when they are young. The younger we push them in a school setting, the more our children are struggling. I see that first hand while I am teaching you. You need to play. Gabriel is just coming out of that phase and going into his hungry for knowledge space. He reads all day long. He just wants to read and read and read some more. He doesn't need me to tell him to do it. He does it on his own because he wants to. He wants to learn. He desires it from within his soul.

Each of you have your own unique places and things that you are passionate about as well. Gabe could study science all day, where Talia wants to do everything that has to do with dance and music. Elijah wants to hit things and touch things all day long, and Joshua just wants to learn from everyone around him. It's a beautiful process, and I'm finally understanding how to just "get out of your way" and let you learn.

I try to give you boundaries and parameters. But all in all, it comes from within YOU. Not something that I'm trying to "educate" you on. You are your own educators.

I love you kids. You are amazing. You are doing amazing. I am so blessed to call you mine.

Your Mom