"To Infinity....And Beyond!"

Homeschooling Jacob this year has been a big adjustment for our house, but it has been such a blessing too. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be able to homeschool him. He is in first grade this year, which you might think is not hard at all to teach, but there are many days when I find myself praying for patience, and if that isn't bad enough, he has even prayed that Mommy would have lots of patience and love.:) There is one thing I constantly find myself doing, though. I find myself underestimating his abilities. I guess since he is in first grade, my mind automatically thinks that certain things might be too hard for him. Lately, though, I've really had to make sure he is focusing on me when I tell him something, or he just won't hear me or "get it," which probably is normal. We will be going through a lesson, and I will start to teach something, and I will automatically think, "This is going to be too hard for him; he is not going to be able to grasp this concept." Yet he surprises me again and again. In Language, we are going through the Level 1 book of Shurley English, and he is just flying through it. There are things in there that I thought would just be way over his head, but he is just taking it all in and "getting it." It's amazing to watch him, my first grader, label a sentence now with 4 different parts of speech. I attribute quite a bit of it to the way the Shurley English presents the material, but that's another post. He also surprises me constantly in other things that we are studying. So, if you homeschool or even if you don't, never underestimate what they can do or think or learn. I've been fortunate in that, for the most part, I haven't let it stop me from teaching him the things I thought would be too hard, and it has been a blessing to see him excel in those things. If we underestimate our children's abilities, we may miss out on something extraordinary, and so will they. I remember a movie we watched called, "For One More Day," where in a scene the mother stood up to the librarian for telling her son that a book was too hard for him to read. That has stuck with me, and we should stand up for our kids' right to learn anything and everything they can. Homeschooling gives us that ability, so I hope this can be an encouragement to any homeschooling families out there to keep teaching and never underestimate the vast capabilities of your child's brain. Have a wonderful day!