One of my greatest joys in homeschooling is seeing my children make connections to what they’ve learned, especially when the connections are made outside of our regular school-time.

We’ve been reading White Stallion of Lipizza, which is a fantastic book, and the children have been loving it. Even the two little ones have sat with us, and looked and listened–it’s just a great story. Last night, though, I got a glimpse of those connections being made, and it was so exciting!

In the chapters we read last night, there were several references to Greek mythology–both Atlas and Apollo were mentioned. And Turkey and Bunny were so pleased with themselves for knowing what those stories were, and figuring out how they related to the story we were currently reading. That’s another fun part of homeschooling–seeing their confidence grow as they learn.

We also stumbled upon the word coronation in our reading. Now, that may not sound terribly exciting, except that corona is one of our vocabulary words in Latin this week. Again, they were excited, because they recognized the root word, and knew that it was related to what we were learning. They needed a little guidance to come to the actual definition of coronation–how many of those do we see in America, after all–but the important thing was the fact that they could recognize a derivative when they heard it.

These connections show both that they’re remembering what they’ve learned, and that they’re getting how to apply it. And I have to say, that’s very beneficial to my confidence as teacher!