In two weeks, our daughter starts kindergarten at the local elementary school. It’s pretty late to start home education, but I want to be more intentional about having our daughter learn as much at home as she does at the public school.
My pleasant surprise today is that the best thing she did happened with her mom.
Today, I had four things for us to do together…
- Spiritual Education – we would review some Bible verses she memorized this summer and start memorizing the Westminster Confession.
- Math Education – we would discuss counting.
- Musical Education – we’d go over the tunes of three songs she’s learning how to play.
- Language Arts Education – we’d write a story together.
The morning went well. She (quite impressively) remember the three Bible passages she had memorized and was down with memorizing the question/answer: “Q. What is the chief end of life? A. To glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
We did a little counting, and while she wasn’t exactly getting it (Me: “What comes after 41?” Her: “51?” Me: “Well, yes. Let me be more specific…”), she was pleasant and patient.
We went to the library where she worked on a project she’d gotten at church: her family tree. It was cool for her to see the names of her grandparents and great grandparents. It let me know that she’s going to have plenty of projects she’s interested in working on that won’t come from me. The family tree assignment was the equivalent of school homework, and it was fun to see her want to know more about my wife’s family and my family too, especially as her first and middle names come from each side. A bonus? She got to tell her grandpa (who visited in the afternoon) that she had been working on her family tree, and that brought a smile to his face.
After her nap, we played piano for fifteen minutes. We moved from “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” to “Mary Had a Little Lamb” to “Jesus Loves Me.” She’s had the first one down for a while. She was shaky on the second one last week, but has greatly improved. The third one is the most complex, and she has the notes down but not the rhythm. I set a five minute practice limit which meant we went through all three songs and the last one twice. Then she messed around for a couple of minutes. She really wanted to learn a new song, but I told her we needed to wait until we had “Jesus Loves Me” down. I want to balance her wanting to play with her working towards mastery. I ran up against the edges of her willingness to keep going today.
Finally, we were supposed to write a story together. I was looking forward to it. Typically, we each write a sentence and have our story build up through that dialogue. She wanted to write about her beloved teddy bear, so we got four sentences down before you could blink.
Then the phone rang.
I have a weekly phone call with a compatriot from grad school, and our daughter couldn’t wait to finish the story. By the time I reentered the house, she had completed the story…with her mom. Through the power of speech-to-text dictation, our duaghter had written the story of how she got her beloved teddy bear.
The other key character in her story? A neighbor she affectionately dubbed “Uncle Dave,” who had given our daughter the bear. I sent him the story. In 10 minutes, he had sent a text that read, “Tears of joy are streaming down my face.”
This was not how I had planned to end the day. It was significantly better. My wife had helped, and our daughter had made someone’s day with her work.
If nothing else, this journey will make me aware of all the teaching moments that happen in a given day. Something else? I might be learning as much as my daughter.
Learning Together 