Capture the Heart, and the Grammar Will Follow

We’re wrapping up our bird study this week with a final saturation.  Today we took a couple of online quizzes to test our bird idenitification skills.  With elbows and pats on the back we spotted bird after bird that would have been unrecognizable two months ago.The kids grab their bird books whenever we leave the house without any suggestive comment from me.  We share a passion with Grandma now that can continue for years past our official learning time.  Birding is no longer something I’m teaching them, they feel their own sense of ownership and kinship to these diverse, beautiful creatures.

On the other hand, I also looked through the girls individual assignments they’ve been working on to earn their bird nature patch at the local Nature Center.  Allowing them to be independent, which is a little newer around here, I haven’t been checking over their work at each step.

Today I got the full picture and and I saw detailed information about bird species, habitat, anatomy, eating habits, and migration.  I also saw partial sentences, lower case letters to start a sentence, sloppy handwriting, misspelled words, and mistakes crossed out instead of erased and re-written.  The heart of the work was there, the presentation was lacking!

And whose fault is it?  We haven’t spent much time on all things grammatical.  It’s on my list for next year.  Should I now berate myself and erase mentally what we’ve learned through our nature and art study in the recent months.  The voice in my head begins, “If my child attended fill-in-the-blank school or lived with such-and-such-homeschool family, I’m sure they would get all of their skills at the same time with the same amount of excellence.”

I could run toward worry.  I certainly have asked myself some questions today as I went over the necessary corrections with the girls(note: they are turning in this work for their badge, this isn’t work heading into the trash, which is why the focus on appearance presented itself).

Or I can breathe.

Wait, my breathing seemed a little too much like breathing during labor.

Let’s try again.

Do they have to learn all of their skills with equal ability in the 3rd and 4th grade?

Wouldn’t I rather have it this way than perfect punctuation without a bit of interest or passion?

I have a feeling if their hearts are captured with learning, the mechanics will follow easily enough when we’re ready.