One of the reasons I love homeschooling so much is that it provides many opportunities to integrate what we’re learning in school into our every day lives. This makes learning meaningful, giving it a practical purpose. When this happens, my kids can clearly and immediately see the need for the skill they are learning.
Just recently, my 1st grader learned how to write a friendly letter. We used the The 5 Parts of a Friendly Letter (free download) and he wrote thank you letters, Christmas letters, happy birthday letters…we found a ton of authentic reasons to write letters. At the same time, he was learning about basic fractions in math. To practice our skills, we did lots of baking. 1/2 cup of water or 1/3 cup oil. It just fit in so nicely. {Oh, the sacrifices we make in the name of learning.}
But I was especially excited when we combined the two skills in a recent “project”. Not only did he work on writing a friendly letter and fractions in an authentic way, we integrated a lesson in giving. He learned how to think outside of himself and do something for someone else. Someone else who often gets overlooked. Our mail lady.
Christ modeled how to love on those who often are overlooked. And I believe it is our duty as followers of Him to model that for our children, teaching them that everyone has value to our Father. And because He loves and values those He created, we should too. As my son and I talked about this, he was excited to execute the “project”.
He wrote our mail lady a thank you note for working so hard to deliver our mail. {Please excuse all the Angry Bird tattoos!} We made her some special brownies, measuring our fractions carefully. And he had the privilege of hand delivering the friendly letter and brownies to her as she drove by our mailbox that very day. He went to bed that night, still talking about how excited he was to do this for her.
We did not expect anything in return. But the next day, she had a letter for him, complete with stickers inside and a thank you note for thinking of her! Oh, the blessings of giving through friendly letters and fractions.