A Look at Homeschooling Through the Eyes of My Grown Children

Homeschooling hindsight provides vision for the future. Take a look at homeschooling through the eyes of my grown children.

It’s been said, “Hindsight is twenty-twenty.” Our perception comes into sharper view at the end of the journey rather than at any moment along the way. For most of my kids, it’s been years since they last homeschooled, and their vantage point offers a unique perspective. I wanted to see our homeschooling experience through the eyes of my grown children. So this week, I went down My Favorites list on my phone and called all my grown kids. I posed one question:

What do you remember about homeschooling?

Here is their unedited list:

Lots of field trips and museums
Spending days at the library
Watching historical movies together on the couch
Spending hours constructing lego cities
Building a ferris wheel with K’nex
Mental math games
Always starting with easy stuff and then going to the harder stuff
Learning things on my own that I wanted to learn
The surprise Knott’s Berry Farm trip instead of school
Building a pyramid out of sugar cubes
Taking a history book and acting out every event
Making Canterbury Tales stories into poster-sized comic strips
Raising diatoms and watching mitosis and meiosis
Colonial Feast-Dressing up and cooking over the fire
Roman Feast-Entire family clothed in togas and our friend knocked at the door
African Feast-Playing handmade African instruments
Medieval Feast-magic show where my cape caught on fire
Medieval Feast-reading jokes out loud because I was the court jester
Dissections, lot’s of dissections!
Really getting to experiment-”Does a cow’s eye lens bounce?” and “How much pressure does it take before a sheep’s lung explodes if filled with air from a bicycle pump?
Testing 20 liquids for acid and base values instead of the four liquids listed in the lab instructions
Rock climbing lessons
Watching blood move through the tail of a goldfish under a microscope
Ceramic lessons
Coming up with my own writing topics
Music lessons
Unlimited construction paper and glue
Computer games for math, spelling, and typing
Lots of crafts-Making our own paper, making mountain men equipment, making costumes, playing store and box city.
Doing a Native American bear dance around the fire
Carrying a canoe up a hill just like Lewis and Clark
Carschooling around the country
Stories on tape
Making my own “locker”
Freedom to study what I wanted
Didn’t have to drive to school
Bunny trailing on YouTube
Becoming the character of whatever book we were reading
Trips to the skate park
Homeschool friends and families
Playing outside-building forts, playing with mud pies, and building a skate ramp
Looking up (researching) everything
Smoothies (AKA:”Mom”ba Jamba Juice) at the end of the day

*****

As I looked at their list, I reflected on the memories that survived. It’s funny, they didn’t bring up “our bad days” or their struggle in learning a concept. However, most of my kids did remind me of the awful year I went “textbook” on them. I’ll admit; I caved; I was overwhelmed, and I said I was sorry.

No one spoke of gaps in their education or regrets. Real-life learning together as a family trumped everything. Each of them expressed delightful memories and a grateful heart for their homeschool experience.

Through the years, I remember how often as a homeschool mom, I fretted, wondering if I had failed. My children’s hindsight taught me one thing; boy…oh…boy, do I worry too much!

From Our Home to Yours,

Beth MoraBeth-Mora-Signature-Transparent
Thanks for letting me share our grown kid’s homeschool memories. This stuff makes great dinner conversations! Ask your kids about their homeschool memories. If this is your first year homeschooling, ask your kids what would make great homeschool memories.

I’m hopping with the ihomeschool network blog hop. There are lots of homeschool bloggers who asked their kids the same question. Click the link and share the experience!

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