Encouraging a love of learning, an overlooked advantage of homeschooling, is addressed below in this series of Christian Homeschooling Articles, outlining the following themes:
Because a responsible mom—especially with the first child she homeschools—often begins to shift her focus from home to school as the pressure from family or perhaps her own internal pressure builds. Traditional academic skills development (see Part 2) often becomes an area of conflict between the homeschooling mother and the homeschooled child.
While academic skill development is important, if it begins to replace (instead of join with) relational, personal, and moral skill development while in the elementary years (Grade 1 through about Grades 4 or 5), mom heaps a heavy, unnecessary burden on herself and her children.
| SHARED KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION |
Bring your children alongside you when they are young and they will desire that you come alongside them as they mature.
TWO SIMPLE IDEAS
Strengthen your relationship with each of your children as you:
- acquire knowledge together through family reading times and
- share with them what you are learning through your own personal education process.
Applying these two simple ideas daily cultivates the love of learning in both your children and you—a love of learning that will motivate them to:
- tackle their weaknesses,
- perfect their skills, and
- acquire their own knowledge at the most efficient seasons of their lives without force.
Simple Ideas for
Shared Knowledge Acquisition
Elementary and Junior High Years
(Approximate Ages: 8-14)| Subject | Activity |
| History and Geography | - Read Living Books* together, especially historical fiction
- Use the globe and maps to identify places when you read
|
| Science | - Read biographies about scientists
- Observe nature naturally
- Enjoy hands-on experimentation together
|
| Health | - Upgrade personal habits one at a time
- Educate yourself about healthy eating
- Share what you’re learning naturally with your children
|
Music and Art
Appreciation | - Develop the tool of home naturally by including music during meals, if possible
- Watch children’s videos about famous artists who lived during the period of history you’re studying together
- Observe art at your local museum and through library books
- Enjoy memorizing a few poems
|
*This outside link to my dear cyberspace friend Wendy’s helpful website introduces you to the concept of implementing Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of reading Living Books to acquire knowledge together.
| PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION |
Continue your own education.
Use this season of homeschooling to continue your own education.
What interests you? Learn about that and share your discoveries with your children.
For example, one summer I wanted to learn more about the wildflowers in our area. So I got a Field Guide and began to look for wildflowers. My children and I collected a few, pressed them, and made bookmarks as Christmas gifts that year.
Additionally, as you learn, you will find God Himself at the Foundation of every subject discipline. Sharing this aspect of your learning ministers to your children as well.
Gradually and naturally add personal knowledge acquisition to your children’s lives.
The preschool and early elementary years focused heavily on skill development.
At the beginning of this season of homeschooling during the early to later elementary school years, a child’s natural curiosity—coupled with your sharing of personally obtained knowledge—increases knowledge acquisition as she matures.
Family reading time broadens her horizons—and yours!—and observation of the world around you rounds out the beginning of this season.
When your children begin maturing into the reasoning stage, personal knowledge acquisition will be added over time to the relational, personal and moral skill development.
By the end of the junior high school stage of homeschooling, around age 14, personal knowledge acquisition will be firmly established.
THREE EXAMPLES
Example 1.
If your child enjoys play-acting, let her dress up and re-enact scenes from history as you read the Bible, classics, or historical fiction books together out loud.
My oldest child thoroughly enjoyed this type of learning. I myself began to love history (a subject I avoided during my growing-up years) because she became so fascinated by the people of history.
One morning I found her at her little desk dressed in sweatpants she had cut off at the knees, a little homemade vest, and a tri-cornered hat “writing” the Declaration of Independence. She had become Thomas Jefferson!
Example 2.
For the child who loves flower-picking, find some quality Field Guides and begin to identify flowers in your area. You can introduce flower parts to the child as well.
During the summer of 2008, my 10-year-old daughter and a young friend of hers came running breathlessly into the house during an afternoon of outdoor play, wide-eyed.
“We found something strange in the gulley that looks like a flower.”
They got the Field Guide and identified an Indian Pipe, something we had not seen before—a flower with no chlorophyll.
Example 3.
At the age of 13, my son, who didn’t learn to read-to-learn until age 9, devoured the Creation ministries books.
Not only did he prepare himself for the next season of homeschooling—acquiring personal knowledge through textbooks!—but also shared his new-found knowledge with me, teaching me through his process.
As you encourage your preschoolers and elementary-aged children to love learning naturally, they will begin to acquire their own personal knowledge that they share with you and others as they prepare themselves through the junior high school years to enter into the rigors of high school homeschool.
When we provide our children with the tools they need
to acquire the knowledge that interests them,
they will develop a love of learning and
teach us parents and siblings through the process.
Unfortunately, it is often at this stage of homeschooling when mom begins to panic, however.
Why?
Because the academic skills development of an elementary and/or junior high school child can become burdensome and overwhelming if not coupled with the shared and personal knowledge acquisition outlined in this article.
Part 2, Skills Development addresses this topic in more detail.
Additional articles related to the theme of Scholarship:
Knowledge acquisition will continue throughout adulthood and into eternity. 
