What a week! Not only has the blog hop been going on, but it’s been a crazy busy one for our family. My husband had surgery on Wednesday, so I’ve had to take over nursing duties for him on top of the regular stuff with the kids. He frequently drives the boys to their activities, so that’s been on me this week. This isn’t me complaining; I’m more simply justifying the lateness of my final blog hop post. This introduction is actually rather fitting for my topic, though (the part about driving the kids around specifically).
Oftentimes in homeschooling families, one parent is responsible for making sure the education happens. I personally think this is a good thing. Taking charge of our children’s educations is one of the most important things we do, whether you homeschool or not. But what about those subjects you don’t feel competent to teach? In those cases, it’s perfectly fine to use another teacher! This can be in the form of a co-op, a tutor, or even something like dance class or online lessons. Our family is pretty inward-focused, so we aren’t involved in a co-op, but my boys (the older 3) take dance classes. I am absolutely not a dancer, so we take them to a studio for dancing; this is the main way we utilize outside teachers. We do also use online teachers when the opportunity arises, too.
As for how this relates to kids with an age gap, I think it has two main benefits. First is the obvious one: getting help with the teaching allows you to spend time with your littles. But there’s one slightly less apparent reason that I can come up with, especially if you sit in the classes with your big kids at least some of the time. That is, you might just learn something with them! And that could help you to feel more confident teaching when the little kids are ready for the same classes years down the road.
Thank you so much for joining me during this blog hop, even if I was two full days late with my final post.
Blessings,
