Delight directed learning in the early years is so easy. It just means allowing your children to enjoy life.
Free play should take up the majority of their day with a small amount of additional practice in the basics (reading, math, handwriting) when they express an interest. Read aloud time should be a regular activity.
For those who desire to follow a delight directed learning approach in their homeschool, the early years can be a bit confusing. “How can I encourage my child’s interests when they seem to change daily… and are primarily just childhood fun?”
Be at peace, Mama.
At this season of life you don’t have to worry about attempting to make your child’s formal learning time reflect their interests (which can constantly change at this age!) because those interests will be worked out through the abundance of play time they have. (Legos, pretend play, art time, outside exploring…). Their life *is* delight directed learning already. This is the way God made children to learn. We, as the mamas, are learning how to enter that world gently, bringing in new ideas to learn (reading, mathematics, etc) as we see a window of opportunity.
Enjoy your child and let them enjoy the world around them.
After you’re done with a beginning reading program, what’s next? It’s time to move on to practicing with real books! This list contains some of our kids favorite books to “graduate” to.
As we have we have spent countless hours reading aloud as a family, we have discovered many treasures. The books listed here are some of those favorites.
Having activities available to keep hands busy during read-aloud time is a “mom hack” that has blessed our household for years! Even my littlest ones will stick around during our longer read-aloud sessions when they have something to do while they listen.
In the early years of homeschooling my children I was in a hurry to see progress and not yet able to just enjoy the process of my children maturing at their own pace. In those days language arts worried me.
The love for books starts young! This post contains some of our favorite books for toddlers; perfect for snuggling up before bed. My husband and I could recite most of these with our eyes closed, and we still enjoy them.
Unit studies are a great solution for families who want to explore a topic more fully. Instead of a segmented homeschool day where history, language arts, or any other subject you cover in a day have nothing to do with one another, a unit study can bring all of these areas together in an exciting adventure of learning.
In our home we require just a few daily subjects are covered together as a family. Beyond that we love exploring the excitement of learning with many different books and resources. Here are a few of the extras I have used during our morning times together…
You’ve completed a reading curriculum with your child but they’re still not comfortably reading on their own. Now what? There is something that you can do to help your child make the transition from a beginning reader to a fluent one. Surprisingly, it only takes a few minutes to do each day.