Reflections From An Eclectic Homeschooling Mama of 8

Through the past few years of our homeschool journey, we have learned alot about our children and ourselves. I've learned that when you provide it, they will come. My children are quite independent and they do not like to ask me for small things all the time so I have created their own leveled space. We have drawers at their level containing puzzles, blocks, paper, writing utensils etc. They have free unlimited access to all these things. They also know that they are responsible for the clean up and maintenance of it all and so far we have been smooth sailing I find my children wanting to do more and read more because they have the ability to grab what they want at any given time. It's truly a blessed victory to me to see children wanting to be creative rather than sit around and watch TV. Some people feel like they shouldn't cater to their children in such a way, but to me that is what having children is all about....creating that space and providing the resources needed f

There are a lot of cool subjects that aren't introduced to younger children until they are in about 2nd grade & up and we don't share these nuggets with the little ones because we simply don't feel they are ready to comprehend yet. I'll tell you from experience that they can understand a lot more than what we give them credit for. In order for me to incorporate all my children in a certain subject that would be considered "over their heads", I implement Unit Studies. For example we are working on the Hydrologic Cycle (water cycle) right now to date. We begin the lesson by reading "The Water Cycle(Watts Library". While I am reading this book to my oldest, the younger ones are listening and coloring pictures I drew pertaining to different forms of precipitaion. Once I am done reading a chapter of the book, we have a moment of reflection, going over new vocabulary words and explaining how those terms affects nature and the weather. I even go to th