Homeschooling Essentials Day Two: Questions

1/21/2014

One of the biggest things I do in teaching my son is I answer questions. It doesn't much matter the question asked, I do my very best to answer it. If I don't know the answer then I'll do my best to find it.

Whether it be "mom, what is this word?" when we are reading something to the questions that just pop up as we are engaged in other activities. how do water striders live in the water? That question came up on a recent walk, so I pulled out my android phone and pushed that into the search bar.

We try to go through the paper everyday, and that often brings up questions as well. From the soul searching.. mom why do people have to hurt each other, to mom.. that's funny, I didn't know that. It's a good way to help teach a boy to think.

Answering questions sometimes leads to the building of frog habitats and toad habitats and having critters in the house that one might prefer NOT to have in the house. Over the winter my son is caring for three toads, one jumping spider, four crayfish, mealworms, an orb weaver and some creek fish. He learns and that is what is important to me. He has had a failure or two: rebuilding the crayfish aquarium, losing crickets in the house, having horn worms die and such like. But for the most part he is doing an excellent job.

Answering questions is sometimes fun, like when we had a fruit fly explosion and the lad wondered how we could get rid of them.

We've answered hard questions about refugees, easy questions about rabbits, normal questions about growing up, growing things, telling time by looking at the sun and so much more. Questions are a big part of our life and a huge part of our homeschooling journey.

What kind of questions have your children asked of you lately?
Do you make them part of your homeschooling journey as well?

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