There Are No Rules

I recently had a fellow homeschooling mom message me on Instagram to ask why I never share our daily main lesson pages.

I told her we actually only do a main lesson page once a week (depending on the topic). She was shocked! Was that even allowed?? Everyone she knew did daily pages.

At first, I started to doubt myself, but then I remembered: There are no rules.

We don’t do a main lesson page every day because for my children it isn’t what is needed. If I had them do it each day, it would be only for myself, to have a visual display of what we worked on. But in actuality, much of what we do daily is active, hands on, hearts on, learning. There are so many ways to activate the mind that go beyond creating a main lesson page. Synthesis of information could be in writing out a recipe, creating a mini book, drawing a chalk map on the side of the house, writing a script and retelling a story through puppetry.

For us, it often isn’t until the end of a week that we turn to our notebooks to put into words all that was lived during the week. And even sometimes it doesn’t happen until the next week. It is all dependent on the needs of my children. Do they need more time to sleep on it? Do they need more hands on experiences before they can put the ideas onto paper? Do they really need to do a main lesson page at all?

I think in this time of social media and beautiful Instagram posts, it is SO SO SO SO important to remember our children don’t always need what others post. Beauty lives in everything we do, not just in our paintings or main lesson pages!

Look to your child and see what is needed, and if it is a main lesson page every day, then do that. If it a page once a week, then do that! What you are looking for is a balance between the head, heart and hands, so that each can be fully immersed in the learning.

(Note: I tend not to share main lesson pages online because it is my children’s work and I believe it is not mine to share. Even if I ask them for permission, at their age, can they really understand what it means to have it out there for everyone to see, possibly indefinitely? I don’t know.)

Until next time,
Marina