Learning for Mom

Sometimes the best way for me to keep my head in the homeschool game is to keep my own brain in the "books" too. Learning is a lifelong journey, and it's even more important for me as a homeschool momma to keep learning and growing myself as I teach my children. Often I will naturally pick up and learn new things as we go through lessons in our homeschool and I love that. It's so exciting to learn new things right along with the kids. It's also exciting to seek out learning for my own interests and desires beyond what I'm doing with my kids or for my kids. It inspires me in so many ways, especially for homeschooling.

With that said here is what I've been doing for my own learning and growth. I started a Journal for my own spiritual thoughts. This is separate from my regular journal. I started decorating the outside with some paint pens. I really had fun doing this. It needs more on the bottom, but I wasn't sure what to do, so I'm saving it for later.

I've also started a "Fun-schooling" journal from Thinking Tree Books. It's full of tips and ideas for homeschooling with books and journals, and whatever else we can dream up.

I love having this journal to do while we are at the table working on school. I can color and work on my book while the kids are working on their things. It gives me something to do with my hands, and it really helps my patience. Rather than sitting there waiting I can focus on coloring in my own book, but it doesn't require a lot of my attention that I can't just stop it to help them.

I also started my own personal nature study journal. I don't have a picture of it yet because I haven't even finished my first entry, but I did pull out all of my birds and blooms magazines to help me, and just doing that got me excited to read through some of these more. I have had a subscription to this magazine for a while now, but I actually hardly ever read them. I usually just look at the pretty pictures of the birds. They are loaded with some good information though!

Those are just a few things that I've decided to add to my own learning adventures. What do you do for your own learning and growth? Interestingly, I found this article, 151 Self-care ideas to increase mindfulness and avoid burnout. Quite a few of them involve learning something new or taking up a new hobby. It's a great list!