Learning as much as my kids

I’ve been homeschooling for over 20 years now.  I was attracted to homeschooling for many of the typical reasons—individualized education, flexible schedule, more time with my children, the ability to impart my values and shelter my children from influences and values with which I don’t agree. One perk of homeschooling that I didn’t foresee when I began, though, was the learning I, myself, would be doing! I am well educated, with a master’s degree, but I have learned so much through the years, even while teaching at the elementary level.

I’ve taught through the cycles of  U.S. and world history several times; I’ve taught all areas of science; art history, Spanish, and more. Because we’ve primarily used a literature based approach, I’ve spent hours reading to my children, and more hours reading the books that they read on their own. I’ve found myself more and more interested in history as I’ve covered it, even at a child’s level. My grasp of world history, especially, was poor before I began this homeschooling adventure.

Recently, I’ve been making an effort to educate myself in different areas that I don’t necessarily have to learn with Emily. Using a couple of products from Crew reviews, I’ve been working on my Spanish with Mango Languages (reviewed last year). I’ve been trying to spend about 10 minutes a day on this. It’s not a lot, but it’s helping to refresh my very rusty high school Spanish.

I’m thrilled to have access to a PianoWithWillie subscription as part of an upcoming review, I’m working on my also rusty piano skills. Although I can learn to play pretty much anything (with practice), my theory skills are abysmal. I know nothing about chord theory or improvising. I can’t play by ear other than a simple right hand melody. I’m hoping to remedy that with this great program. (Yes, Emily gets to use it, too, but I’m probably going to be the primary user this time!)

I’m even thinking about doing some math with the CTC Math program that is a new review this week. I’m pretty solid through algebra and geometry, so I haven’t had any trouble helping Emily with math this far, but I don’t remember much beyond that. I always liked math--way back in high school when I last studied it--so it might be fun as well as useful to relearn some higher math. If I can just carve out some more time in my day!

What have you learned in your role as a homeschool teacher?