Tadpoles and homeschooing make sweet memories on a spring afternoon.

Ben brought me his latest “find” in the backyard. He says they tickle his hand when they swim.

He is constantly bringing in some critter. He watches and learns. He asks lots of questions and I’ll admit, I don’t always know the answers so we look together.

One of my very favorite books for my little explorers is Pets in a Jar.

I’m so glad for a seven year old who loves to share his joys with his mama!

When you are just getting started, homeschooling can seem complicated and maybe overwhelming. In reality, if you look at homeschooling as a lifestyle of learning that you actually do every day, you realize you have been homeschooling since the very beginning of your child’s life.

Let your children play and make *every* day an opportunity for learning!

Some of my favorite “everyday learning” opportunities include:

• Homeschooling: Cooking

Include your children in cooking your meals! They can measure and you can teach them to read recipes. It is amazing how many teaching opportunities are available to me just because we are in the kitchen together. They ask so many questions!

• Homeschooling: Exploring Outside

The children learn so many things from just being outside! This year (as mentioned above), they have found tadpoles. They have watched geese and planted the gardens. They have ran into piles of leaves and watched the tiniest critters crawl along the ground. They have watched storms roll in, and rainbows form in the sky. There is always something to observe and study.

• Homeschooling: Helping With Home Chores

Teaching children chores is important for so many reasons that I can’t even begin to list them all here.

Chores give us the opportunity to teach our children responsibility. They learn to count and order. Again while spending time by your side, you might be surprised by the questions they ask and the opportunities you have to teach them about God and the world around them.

• Homeschooling: Ministry to Others

Ministry is such a huge part of our homeschooling. We try to focus each week on some kind of homeschool ministry project. While preparing some type of ministry project is a teaching opportunity by itself, our family been mostly blessed by the elderly people we minister to each week. While we are setting out to help them in some way, I think the things they share and teach my children are actually a ministry to us.

Those older folks in our community have a lifetime of experience to share and they love to share it with the younger generation.

• Homeschooling: Reading

I think this one is obvious but sometimes, we just don’t realize how much we teach our children as we simply read to them.

Whether it’s during evening devotions while we are reading the Bible, an article in a magazine we may be sharing (Highlights and Family Fun are such fun to share as a family!), or reading a great book, you ALWAYS learn when you read as a family!

If you would like more ideas, I share additional ideas for everyday learning at home on my Facebook page and my Twitter account

So what will you teach your children today?