A Lifestyle of Learning
By Sarah J. Brown - A Homeschooling Mother of Eight

More than an Education 
My Goals for Teaching and Training My Children

1. Instill love for learning, discovery and exploration.
2. Increase attention span by engaging in interesting activities that take time to accomplish.
3. Give opportunity to learn through creative play.
4. Provide fun educational experiences that spark interest in new subjects.
5. Make the tools for learning and discovery easily accessible.
6. Help the children to learn from mistakes.
7. Help children to discover the lessons of life and science in everyday tasks and events.
8. Help the children to set goals small and large and work toward those goals.
9. Give the children freedom and opportunity to explore their world. 
10. Show them what it means to have a good work ethic, allow them to work, build, create and be helpful with household tasks.
11. Help them to understand that actions have consequences, positive and negative, they will reap what they sow.
12. Teach them to be attentive and precise in communicating with others.
13. Expose them to beautiful literature, art and music.
14. Teach them to listen carefully by giving them opportunity to listen to fascinating subjects using books, audio and mixed medias.
15. Be attentive to each child’s interest and ability in understanding the concepts of reading writing and mathematics; don’t push these abstracts concepts to early if the child is not ready.  But frequently give them the opportunity to see these concepts in action though life, play, example and lessons.
16. Introduce the children to the use of graphs, equations, scenarios, theories, money, time, maps, globe atlases, computers, letters, numbers, and measurements. Do this in interesting ways so that they hardly realize that it’s part of their formal education, but instead that they would embrace these things as part of their personal world of discovery.  Help them to be exited about the tools of discovery.
17. Help them to grasp the basic facts about the history of the World, the history of the United States, the history of Indiana, the history of our family and their own story beginning with life in the womb.
18. Use local resources for hands on education such as the zoo, museums, state parks, grocery stores, libraries, farms and local industries.
19. Allow freedom to get creative with art and music, but also provide challenging directed opportunities for exploring the arts and making their own creation
20. Help the children to develop good character, by teaching moral lessons along side academics. 
21. Help them to learn about interesting people, cultures and traditions.
22. Tell them stories about missionaries, heroes, explorers, inventors, and other people with inspiring life stories.
23. Tell stories well so that they will learn to be good story tellers, listen to their stories.
24. Understand that many of the things the children need to learn will happen naturally by playing freely and by working along side mommy and daddy.  Consider what is best for the child above what is easiest for the parent… (Let Isaac stand out in the snow and mud and watch daddy change the tire.)
25. Teach them to teach themselves.
26. Allow them to excel in their areas of strength, talent and interest.  Help them to overcome weaknesses but invest the most their areas of greatest potential. 
27. Don’t bog them down with too much paperwork at a young age, we are not limited by a classroom.
28. Let them take joy in educational discovery in order that they would love learning for a lifetime.
29. Go on adventures together.
30. Listen carefully to their hearts and minds.

TREASURE EVERY MOMENT!   You are blessed!

When it was time to start 1st grade Anna was ready to learn!  We quickly learned that she wasn't ready to learn reading, writing and math.  After struggling with these subjects I knew she needed more time to just focus on her talents and special interests.  So we spent a whole year majoring in art, design and science.  It was wonderful!

I believe that homeschooling gives us a beautiful freedom to help our children to become who they were design to be.  We can make this happen by focusing on our child's strengths, gifts and talents (not just their weaknesses).  If you want to have a happy homeschooler give you child a chance to study the things that she enjoys the most. That is the beauty of homeschooling.  If your child thinks outside the box, if your child has a huge imagination, if your child loves to invent, create and play... then give her freedom to explore her world.  Give her the tools she needs to advance in her talents.

I provided Anna with art and craft supplies, and she amazed us all with her creations.  We began to focus on reading and writing in 3rd grade, when she was ready, we used puzzles, games and art to teach her things that were challenging for her.  Anna has always been a happy child, because of our homeschooling style she was not restricted by her dyslexia and in time she was ready to overcome the challenges, without losing any of the gifts of dyslexia..