I just want to take a moment today and remind you that everything your child does is part of their education. It is an amazing thing we can do as homeschoolers, when we stop judging learning and expecting it to look like school, and instead embrace the myriad things our kids can learn.
Let me give you some beautiful examples.
Playing Minecraft is digital design, architecture, map reading, and problem-solving. All skills needed for science and math.
Watching random people on YouTube can actually teach your child a whole range of things from how to play a video game better to how to put on makeup or bake a cake. But what they are really doing, is learning how to learn from the technology their generation is going to be living with. Inevitably they will have online classes and those YouTube moments will have prepared them for when their college English class is all online.
Cooking teaches a life skill, which we should never underrate. Your child is going to need to feed themselves every day for the rest of their lives. Spending part of their day learning to make sandwiches, cookies, brownies, or fruit smoothies is important all on its own. Other parents will point out that measuring is math, but I don’t even care about that. I care that my kids can feed themselves! I’m kind of tired of cooking. Aren’t you?
Reading weird fan fiction online about Minecraft or their favorite characters is still reading. It still improves their vocabulary and their awareness of language. Reading is reading. Be happy they are reading.
Playing outside, riding bikes, hiking, playing ball and all physical activities are great. The muscles your child creates in childhood and through their teenage years will help them be healthier for many years to come. The benefits of a healthy active childhood carry over long past childhood. Call it physical education and let them play. Or put them in sports, dance, or swimming. Those are great too.
Please, don’t feel you have to fill every moment of your child’s homeschool day. Those other things they are doing, are just as important as math and reading, maybe even more important.
About the Author
Laura Sowdon, OTR/L is an occupational therapist, writer, speaker, educator and creator of the Five Senses Literature Lessons homeschool curriculum. She has worked as an occupational therapist with children in public and private schools, as well as private practice. Laura has taught and managed homeschool co-ops as well as homeschooling her own three children. Laura is dedicated to the idea of educating children at a pace that aligns with brain and physical development milestones and respects neurodiversity in all its forms.