What Kindergarten Teachers Know By Lisa Holewa and Joan Rice

I started homeschooling my son last fall. Since I am new to this, I figured why not learn the secrets of teachers who have come before me. This book is a quick read, which is nice for a busy homeschooling parent.

I found this book to be so-so. For the most part, I was unimpressed. I didn’t feel as though I was learning anything new until I got to the chapter about “play.” Then, my opinion changed. This chapter really spoke to me. The authors opened my eyes as to truly how important play is to a child, that it is a child’s “work” in a sense. It is the basic human right of every child. Being so enthusiastic about homeschooling at present, I tend to try to find something to teach my son in every opportunity. While my son and I have a lot of fun, the book warns against making every moment a learning opportunity. Play is how children learn new things, and it is precisely unstructured, unhindered play that they need. In a way, this is very relieving to me. I don’t have to be so caught up in making sure he is learning something because if he is playing, he is learning.

Another tidbit I took away from the book was the idea that children need things to be silly and fun. This is, of course, something that I knew, but adult responsibilities can pile up really fast, so if I’m not careful, it’s easy to forget. The book has tons of ideas on how to do this, and while most of the ideas, I will probably never actually use in real life, I recognize that other families might. One thing we did do in my house is this: my son has this little toy shark that he likes. One day, the shark just took on a personality (through me making him talk, of course). Now, he joins us for homeschool everyday, and my son finds him hilarious. Before reading this book, I would have considered the shark a distraction. Now, I see that my son actually pays better attention when the shark is present and talking to him. Silly to me, but it works.

I also realized from the book that my son is now at an age where he can become more involved in his play. His imaginary games are more involved and last longer. Sometimes, he comes to me whining and bored, and I now know how to give him some direction. There is all types of games listed in the book, but here’s an example of what we did in our house, just yesterday: normally my son would play freely, but he was having trouble figuring out what to do. I suggested he play “restaurant”. He got every stuffed animal out, situated them at his restaurant, got them menus, and served them food. He played this game for several hours. I directed his play a bit, and it worked beautifully.

The last part I enjoyed is the last sentence in which I’ll just quote: “I had two essentials every day when I wlked out the door:Are my kids happy? And Did they learn something worthwhile? But most of all, I wanted them to know they were loved- that they were loved, and that they could trust me.” I really identified with this.

In the end, not everything in this book resonated with me, but there were some very important things that did. This book is cheerful and upbeat. It’s worth a try.