Maybe I Can Do This

I'm so nervous to homeschool. I don't want my kids to hate it. I want them to love learning. I worry I won't be a good teacher, that I'll get frustrated easily or that I won't do a good job. But then Jonah surprises me by what he already knows or what he is interested in doing or learning.

Jonah has been really interested in numbers lately. About a month ago he was counting, but once he got to 29, 39, 49, etc, he could never remember how to start the next set of numbers. We practiced it a few times in the car on the way to preschool one morning and he got it. Then for the next few days he'd count to 100 all by himself! I was amazed simply because it wasn't something I even thought about teaching him yet. I guess I figured he had plenty of time to learn that. He even ended up annoying his friend Juliet over this new skill when one day they were playing hide-and-seek and he always counted to 100 before going to find her and Nathan. Juliet was tired of waiting so long and in the middle of his counting would shout out exasperated, "Just come find me!" He's also been working on simple addition which amazes me because we've never taught him any math. One night at dinner we discovered he already knew a few simple math problems like 1+1, 1+2, 2+2, 4+4. etc. Raymond then asked what 2+3 was and Jonah answered 6. When we told him that wasn't right, he thought about it a little more and then said 5. He wasn't counting on his fingers or anything, just doing it in his head. I was really surprised at this.

Yesterday morning, I overheard Jonah talking in the backseat of the car and he said that 2 by 2 is 8. Putting my teacher voice on, I told him that 2 plus 2 is 4, not 8. Then he told me, yes, but 4+2+2 is 8. My jaw dropped and I asked him how he knew that. His reply? "I just know it in my heart."

This kid amazes me sometime. He still doesn't recognize all of his lowercase letters yet, which I suppose I should work with him on this. I should have him practice writing more too. He's been asking me what certain letters spell out and I've noticed him trying to sound out letters and words a lot too. It's so cute! I'm just having a hard time knowing what is pushing him too much and what is not doing enough. I know there are a lot of kids out there his age that are already reading and writing a little, so I know he's not necessarily ahead or "advanced". I'm more surprised at what he does know simply because we don't really do a lot of that yet at home. I'm pretty sure he's not learning math at preschool, but I really don't know where he's picking it up from.

I guess I've always figured he'll have enough school time in the next 13+ years that I hate to get out the flash cards and drill him and force a bunch of "school" time on him at home. I don't want to discourage him and cause him to not have any fun or interest in it anymore. I want to cultivate this and encourage it instead of having him burn out and hate learning and school. But when he does show me that he is learning and understands things, and even surprises me with what he knows, it helps me feel like I can do this, I can homeschool.

We'll see how I feel a year from now, haha!

It seems like a lot of kids start their school years in eagerness and anticipation and they are excited to go, but then either the school work becomes too hard or too dry and boring. That interest and excitement fizzles out and they start to dread it and complain about school. I don't want school work to become some sort of power struggle since I will be both mom and teacher.

Too many things to think about...

Jonah is going to be 5 in exactly a month! Where did my little baby go?

And just because, here are some pictures of my cuties that were taken at a family reunion we attended a few weeks ago.




Oh, and if you read my other blog, I finally have a new post after a solid month of inactivity!