Creativity, Curiosity, and Exploration

I’ve had many years post-homeschool life to think about the best parts, the hardest parts, and even the parts that make you question your sanity. They are all there and all of these parts combined made for a pretty wonderful experience in my book. I promise to explore the hard and sanity questioning parts in later posts, but for today, I’d like to dive into some of my favorite parts.

Creativity, Curiosity, and Exploration
As August rolled around, I got as giddy as the kids did for freshly sharpened pencils, bright, sorted crayon boxes, clean planner pages, new books, and a calendar full of activities with friends. Our homeschool year started out “well planned” but like many other homeschool families understand, it began to take a more organic shape. I quickly found that my kids didn’t always “fit” the curriculum as I had hoped or imagined in my mind. I remember sitting down with my oldest daughter after finishing her first year and asking her what we could have done differently. What could the next year look like that fit more of her interests? I kept that list for many years as a reminder that my kids had a voice that wanted to be heard and how important that was in their homeschool journey.

What her list really came down to was a space for more creativity, curiosity, and exploration. We talked about creating a radio play (pre podcasts), visit the library more, have more park days, do more art projects, be a part of a play, be a part of more field trips, and dive deeper into the world of The Wizard Of Oz. Her list did not include better structured math lessons or vocabulary and spelling worksheets. Her list spoke to ways where she could express her creativity through the arts, be curious about new worlds, experience new challenges, and explore more physical spaces.

Over the next several years, so much of our learning took place in those spaces. The kids helped me build unit lessons, explore different math, language arts, science, and social studies curricula that appealed to them, and helped me plan meaningful outings. Their curiosity challenged me to think outside of the box when developing curriculum and find new ways to challenge them. Their desire for exploration got me out of my comfort zone and challenged my initial ideas around homeschooling in thinking that it had to happen “in the home”. Their creativity allowed me to get comfortable with messes, problem solve better with them, and understand their unique personalities better. We still had bumps along the way but it felt better to be moldable instead of trying to stick to a rigid structure that only created friction.

I am grateful for taking the time to step back early on in our homeschool journey to evaluate what was truly important to us. It is never too late to reevaluate, take a step back, and make changes.

Keep going, you’ve got this!
Warmly,

Joanna