Saying goodbye to kindergarten and hello to books in a new way!

This week I’m packing up kindergarten materials and saying goodbye to that tender season of homeschool, and it’s bittersweet. Kindergarten has been a good chunk of our homeschool so far. After leading both my daughters through it for the past two years in a row, first the oldest, then her younger sister this past year, I’ve come to realize just how precious that year of childhood is.

The way I see it, kindergarten is the bridge between the carefree play and messiness of the toddler years, followed by the more studious and formal years of grade school. Kindergarten is somewhere in the middle, animated by playful learning and hands-on, messy fun, filled with wonder for the world and innocence. It’s like a miracle when the alphabet becomes more than a song but a code of how to break through to language and reading. It’s a season of acquiring emotional regulation skills after the tantrums of earlier years and it’s a garden in which the seeds of maturity of mind, character and virtue begin to sprout. Meandering through that magical forest with my daughters through homeschooling and seeing them pass through the gates to reading, has been, in a word, delightful.

When my daughters learned how to read in kindergarten, the world opened to them in new ways and books became treasures they could uncover all on their own now and share with each other. They were so proud! To see their joy over books is heartening to me, this mama writer, whose own love for words was infused within me from my youngest years. I still have notebooks filled with poems I wrote as a child, and I remember the little blank books my mother bought for me to write my own stories in when I was that homeschooled kindergartener myself.

The funny thing is, as a second-generation homeschooler, I’ve been the one most resistant about homeschooling, the challenger, if you will, while my husband, the one who attended private grade school and a private all-boys high school, has been the strongest homeschooling advocate around here. Unlike many mothers in the homeschool world, it was not something I dreamed about really, to homeschool my children, as teaching isn’t my first love; rather, writing is. However, being schooled at home by my mother and then working from home as a writer and editor, I have gotten into the habit of being happy in the home. The slowness of doing things on my own time and schedule is a blessing, developing a rhythm of home life that revolves around everyone’s needs and our highest values. Most of all, homeschooling has strengthened our ties and bonds as a family, getting through difficult moments together.

It will be a few years before my little boys reach the kindergarten stage. In the meantime, I’ll be diving into a second round of 1^st grade and beginning 2^nd grade with my daughters in the fall. I’ve learned so much this past year about what worked and what didn’t, and how to set realistic expectations, that I am thrilled to say I already have my lesson planner for next year and most of the curriculum “figured out” (what a relief!).

In some ways, it will be easier next year, because of the lessons I’ve learned along the way:

• Homeschooling is a lifestyle. Some days, the focus is heavy on books and worksheets, globes and maps and rulers and pennies. Other days, the emphasis shifts out of a necessity for home and heart, for learning new chores, going on outings, free play and board games while mom attends to the babies, and in that spirit, caring for and taking care of each other. Family first. Most days are a mix of everything.

• Flexibility and perspective. I learned very quickly that if I were to homeschool two while having a toddler and baby as well, I had to have very realistic expectations, and when life kept changing as their young ages demanded new routines, well, my lesson plans and daily rhythm had to adjust and adapt too.

• Humility. There are so many amazing resources out there for homeschooling! You can easily get caught up in thinking you’ve found the best approach to education, only to realize that it just doesn’t work for one reason or another within the family dynamic. A veteran homeschool mom told me the best advice, “In the end, it’s the curriculum that gets the subject done that is effective, and the best one for the family.” It took me about three different math programs to figure out “what works”!

As I close the books on this past year and embrace a bit of summer vacation (although learning never ends!), I’m looking ahead with hope. You see my own dreams have come true in the past couple months. I’ve signed a book contract with two other author friends after over a decade of collaboration on a manuscript, and I will be sharing more about our forthcoming book soon on Substack! In the meantime, suffice it to say, the coming year will be an exciting one as I journey through the publishing process, my daughters learning something about how books come to exist, and my family at my side, always.