I first started researching about homeschooling when I was pregnant with our first baby and I continue to research and read up on homeschooling now 5 1/2 years down the road. One thing that stood out for me during my research was the importance of cultivating a love for learning. One of our measures of whether we will have successfully raised our children is whether they will have developed a love for learning.

Too often we see children stop learning or wanting to learn when school is over. It’s as if they have a switch in their heads where it can be turned on and off depending when school is in session or not. It saddens me when I hear kids say that school is boring or that they are not learning anything. There is no enthusiasm for learning and all of life seems like a drag. This seems so often the rule rather than the exception.

Will my children suffer the same fate? I certainly hope not. How then do I plan to help my children cultivate a love for learning? Here are some of my ideas:

1. Be a role model. Children read and want to learn when they see mommy and daddy enjoy reading and learning.
2. Surround your child with great books. There are nutritious foods and junk foods, and likewise, there are nutritious books and junk books. Provide what’s nutritious for your children’s minds.
3. Help your children to relate what’s written to real life. If you’re reading about fish, take them to the aquarium to see the actual fish. If you’re learning about plants, take them outside and go on a nature walk.
4. During their early education, make school as fun and exciting and interesting as possible. For this reason I continue to research and find what makes my children tick. We do paper-and-pencil school work, but I try to do as many hands-on activities as possible. I find that learning through games gets my children excited about learning. Of course, as they grow older, I expect them to be able to learn in “non-fun” ways as well.
5. Go on field trips. I find that if I make plans in advance, we will more likely go on field trips more consistently. Our current goal is to go on one field trip per month.
6. Whenever we can, teach them in the “milieu” of life. Enthusiasm over the most seemingly mundane things can give them a sense that the world is full of things to discover (which it is!).
7. Talk often with your children. My husband is a better communicator than me and I often see him explaining a concept or idea to my children using very tangible examples and analogies.