Over the past couple of posts, weโve been on a journey to discover the TRUTH about what it means to successfully educate your children.
We learned that many of us get caught in the trap of believing that the right homeschool method, curriculum, or schedule will bring us that success. That was me for the first six years of homeschooling. Instead, I was really just trading one type of busywork for another, drowning my kids in work and frustration that amounted to a pile of nothingness at the end of the year.
We spent time pursuing busywork instead of engaging in meaningful learning activities.
Once I gave myself permission to be my kidsโ expert, I was no longer trapped by a method, a curriculum, or an ideal schedule. It was at this turning point that I took the advice of another homeschool mom.
She told me to put everything that wasnโt working for me and my kids under the bed. She encouraged me to start using 2 tools consistently with my kids. With these two tools, she said I could completely change the dynamics of how we homeschool. After six years of overwhelm, I was ready to try anything!
I found out very quickly โฆ she was right! In fact, with these two tools, I now have the freedom to make ANY method and ANY curriculum fit my family and it takes LESS TIME to achieve engaging results. Probably the best feel-good takeaway is that my kids enjoyed it.
The 2 tools that have forever changed our homeschool journey:
Narrations and Notebooking
Thanks to narrations and notebooking, I now know exactly what my kids have learned each day and I no longer wonder if the time was well spent. The results speak for themselves.
Like so many other moms have reported to us, my kids asked if this was really school and if they could do more of it. At dinner each night, they were excited to SHOW and TELL dad what they had learned that day.
Through the use of narrations and notebooking, they were forming their own thoughts about the topics they studied and the notebook provided a beautiful record of THEIR learning. Our school days ended sooner because we removed all of the fluff (busywork) from our day. This opened up time for play, art projects, music lessons, free reading, hobbies, โฆ all of the things we โnever had time forโ.
Even during a time of hardship โฆ we prevailed!
You know the saying, โYou donโt know what youโre missing until itโs gone.โ Several years into our notebooking path, I learned this firsthand. Our family went through a trying and difficult season. Everything had to be simplified. So, I put notebooking on the shelf and purchased a workbook curriculum thinking it would help the kids be more independent and would make things less mom-intensive for me. I was about to discover not only how wrong I was in that decision but also what I had been missing.
About a month into swapping out notebooking for workbooks and some video courses, my kids finally said,ย โMom, if weโre going to spend the time to learn X,Y, and Z, we want to actually learn something. Can we please go back to notebooking?โ
They confessed they were just doing the work to get it done and that they felt this was a total waste of their time. They discovered the emptiness of busywork for themselves and they wanted MORE from their learning. They wanted to take charge of their learning and make it mean something! WOW-O-WOW.
This was the defining moment for me โฆ this is when we officially WON the battle over busywork and overwhelm for good.
I knew notebooking made our schooling more fun and more meaningful, but until that moment I hadnโt realized how much confidence it was developing in my children. Since that time, I have not put notebooking on the back burner.
Homeschooling with narrations and notebooking changed the dynamics of our homeschool. ย It changed me. ย It changed my children.
Following a method, curriculum, or schedule with near-perfectย execution is no longer my measure of success or failure. Instead, having confident, self-motivated, life-long learners who know they arenโt limited to what some expert, worksheet, or test deems important is proof of our success.
Instead of a failing, stressed andย busy homeschooler,ย I became a confident, relaxed and productive homeschooler.
Watch Next: Our Story Video
Part 1ย | ย Part 2ย ย | ย Part 3ย | ย Our Story (Video)
