Learning when you aren't looking

I was feeling like a mega failure at homeschooling today....it's been a crazy month, and I just can't seem to get a handle on how to keep up. Instead of sticking to the lesson plans I've been racing around trying to incorporate our wild life into the things I'm hoping to be teaching.

Yes, there are teachable moments everywhere-- but I was feeling so frustrated that we had had very little time over this crazy vacation season to actually sit down and study our lessons.

BUT THEN....I had my family over for dinner.
It's my daughters' birthday and we were celebrating.

Just a few of the things I saw/overheard which completely changed my mind---and that reminded me that sometimes you just need to see your kids from outside the boxes you draw around your lesson plans. ;)

1. One of my kids asked for a broom to sweep up the porch. They all jumped in the air excited to help him, and left all the adults in the room standing around with their mouths hanging open when they did it. What kids do that??!

2. My seven year old daughter BEGGED me to read "just one page" from Paul Johnon's "A History of the American people," a book my dad -- who is an American Historian-- just finished.

3. My youngest (3) randomly recited a poem at the table: the Land of Counterpane.

4. My sister in law, a public schoolteacher who puts in countless hours training and curriculum selecting, was complaining about having a month to teach her kids fractions. My seven year old introduced her to Life of Fred. She left the house with the title of the LOF with fractions in it so she could buy it to teach her kids(!) Even better, she said: "then I can knock out some language arts requirements too." ;)

5. The same sister in law was talking about how she had Romeo and Juliet on the shelf in her third grade classroom and one of her students had picked it up and read it and had been talking to her about it. She expressed how amazed she was that her 3rd grader not only could read it, but would... after all it was on her reading list for ninth graders. We were able to testify to the fact that most "reading level" indications are meaningless. Good books are good books, and everyone will enjoy them. She found this idea amazing, and I loved sharing in her "aha!" moment.

6. My son, five, walked around spelling all the items in the room. And used both memory and phonetic rules, as appropriate, to do it. (Does it have a silent e?)

7.  My five year old son also spontaneously narrated the story of St. Paul's conversion in a manner that left all of us rapt with attention.

I'm not saying I'm going to lose the lesson plans (as if!) but only that in times of stress when we feel like we aren't "doing enough," it might be good to take a step outside our plans to see how much our kids are growing in all the beautiful ways we are guiding them... and if we have laid down the rails properly, in all the ways we aren't.

“They (children) must be let alone, left to themselves a great deal, to take in what they can of the beauty of earth and heavens; for of the evils of modern education few are worse than this–that the perpetual cackle of his elders leaves the poor child not a moment of time, nor an inch of space, wherein to wonder–and grow.” -Charlotte Mason: Volume 1, Home Education, Part II, P.44