That long, rambling story your child just told you? It counts.

Hey Reader,

"Mom! Mom! Guess what happened!"

And then comes the story.

It might be about something that happened at the park, a conversation with a friend, or something funny the dog did.

If you're lucky, the story has a beginning, middle, and end.

If you have one of those wonderfully enthusiastic storytellers, it might have seventeen beginnings, three unrelated side stories, and an ending that somehow involves a dinosaur. 😂

Either way, your child is doing something worth noticing.

They're taking an experience and deciding how to communicate it to someone else.

Think about what's involved.

They have to remember what happened.

Choose which details to include.

Decide what happened first, or what was important enough to tell first.

Find words to describe the experience.

And sometimes, recognize that you don't understand what they're talking about and add more information.

That's a lot of thinking for an ordinary conversation.

We spend time teaching reading comprehension, sequencing, vocabulary, and communication because they're important skills.

But your kids practice parts of those skills in everyday conversations, too.

Of course, not every child tells a perfectly organized story.

Some children skip important details.

Others get distracted halfway through.

And some will tell you the same story six times because they're still excited about it.

Those differences are useful to notice.

A child who includes every tiny detail may be working on deciding what's important.

A child who jumps straight to the funniest part may be learning how to organize events for someone who wasn't there.

Neither example means we have to interrupt and start teaching a lesson.

Here's today's small shift.

The next time your child tells you about something that happened, listen for one detail they chose to include.

It might tell you what they remember, what they understood, or what mattered most to them.

You don't have to analyze the entire conversation.

And you certainly don't have to follow it with, "Now let's write a paragraph about that!" 😂

You can enjoy hearing your child's story and appreciate the communication happening at the same time.

The more familiar you become with the way your kids express themselves, the easier it becomes to recognize both their growing abilities and places where they might benefit from support.

That's what I mean when I talk about understanding your homeschool.

We're not hunting for academic value in every conversation.

We're learning more about the kids we're teaching by paying attention to the things they're already showing us.

✏️Christy's Corner✏️

Take 10 minutes to journal or hit reply and share your thoughts with me, because when you give yourself room to grow, your homeschool grows with you.

Do you have a child who LOVES telling stories? What's one detail they always seem to remember or include? Hit reply and tell me!