Sometimes I wonder if I’m overthinking this whole parenting thing. Either that or my parents didn’t give a crap. No… I don’t mean that. Not really. But seriously, am I overthinking this?

Since I took a left turn down onto homeschool lane I’m constantly second-guessing myself, or wondering how I can do a better job.

Part of me is all “Come on, if I’m in charge we’ve gotta knock this stuff out of the park!”

Then the other side of me is saying “No no, a big reason we’re doing this our way is to have more freedom and flexibility, slow your roll lady!”

I want to make learning fun, and help nourish a love of learning in my kids, but that’s also a lot of pressure to put on myself. So I’m just trying my best and coming to grips with the fact that some days, it might just not be as fun; but whenever possible, I want to make it enjoyable.

It’s great when we hit a breakthrough and I find a new way to teach something that’s otherwise boring. Whether it’s reading practice or counting to 100 I’ve found sometimes it’s all about the approach. Instead of just practicing reading sight words off a card, if I turn it into a “capture the card” game, all of a sudden it’s exciting for my daughter. When counting, if I have her shout out the number every time she finishes writing a row of 10, writing to 100 isn’t tedious, it’s fun. Throw in some stickers and she’s in heaven.

I guess the creators of the Code-a-pillar had that in mind when they developed a toy about coding.

My kids have adopted this thing as a new pet. It’s a toy but they’ve named her Calli. She’s a Code-a-pillar from Fisher-Price. It didn’t take long for my kids to figure out how she moves according to the order of her pieces. Well, it didn’t take my daughter long. My son throws a fit every time she takes it apart and hurries to reassemble her.

We have a fair share of toys, some of them educational because of tools like letter recognition, others are helpful for learning life skills, and this is a fun in between.

“Let’s get Snoop!” Lil’ J plotted yesterday evening.

Getting on the floor and playing with my kids, designating Snoop as the target then watching my daughter program the code-a-pillar to circle around the carpet and up to our unsuspecting pup–That’s fun learning.

Fisher-Price sent us the toy to try, but we were having so much fun with it went online and ordered extension pieces on our own so we could have her take longer courses and make full 360 turns.

I watch as my daughter uses her hands to outline a path she’s pictured in her mind. I’m amazed at her little mind hard at work. I’m impressed at the beginning stages of coding she’s learning. I mean who knows… Maybe some day she will create the next virtual reality app craze that brings back a fad from the 90s.

Three decades into life I still absolutely love learning. I love history, learning languages, studying cultures, religions, and plotting to learn piano. I’m forever curious. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember so I don’t know if that’s just my makeup or if it can be taught.–But I want that for my kids. I want them to feast on knowledge and enjoy studying new things and I’m thankful for tools and techniques that help make developing the love of learning easier.

I may be overthinking some parenting decisions but this is one effort I think is worth it.

Learning about the world around us is so important and making it enjoyable for my kids is something I’m passionate about, which is why I partnered with Fisher-Price on this post. All opinions are my own.

Tags: Fisher-Price, homeschooling, learning, positive parenting