Resourceful learning - use what you have

... and create a more memorable learning experience at the same time!

Everyone has heard stories of children enjoying playtime with items that are not technically toys. Banging on pots and pans, cubby houses made with old sheets, etc. Well, what about learning with objects that are not what you'd find in your standard classroom? Cheaper - check; fun - check; a learning experience - check; what more could we want? :)

Last year I was trying to figure out a maths lesson for Sunshine where she could kind of work on her own. I wanted to set her up with instructions and then let her go with it while I got onto household chores. A year or so before, she was given a Barbie computer thing. It is a toy, with a keyboard and basic monochrome-dot-matrix styled screen. It had a few games on it - 'educational' typed things that Sunshine didn't often use because it was a bit hard for her. I realised though that there were a few games that she could do so I went through them and wrote a list of the games numbers she could do. A variety of memory, sequence, pattern and basic one digit maths sums. Then every Friday for a month or so, Sunshine sat down and went through the list I had made doing the exercises, ticking off as she accomplished each task. She loved it - she loved the variety of learning from something other than the normal book we had been working on, and I think she liked having a pixel-y Barbie speaking encouragement to her as she worked through. Ticking the items off would have given her a sense of achievement also - I always loved ticking things off lists as a child (pretending to be the teacher!). So this is an example of a toy we had around the house, that didn't really get used for it's potential and utilising it to create a memorable learning experience. What do you have around your house that could be used for learning?

A quick word on manipulatives...
I want to encourage you to think of all kinds of unusual items around the house or garden or park or coffee shop (where ever you are) to use as educational aids. In the picture above, Sunshine used cherry tomatoes for her addition work, but you can use anything. I read an article where a homeschooling Mum would reach for anything she could such as oranges to roll to her child while counting. If you are in a coffee shop - use sugar sachets or plastic spoons. Basically, think outside the box of what is available to a child in a standard school room and use it. Enhance the learning experience and teach your child resourcefulness and creative learning at the same time.

A library trip - expanding my mind and my babes

For something different last week, we visited a library in a local country town that has recently been renovated. Such a beautiful space to spend a morning! I went with the plan to read while we were there rather than borrow anything because I didn't feel we needed any new books (we still had some from our local library).

So we picked a few picture books, read them and then I had a wander around to see if they had anything cool that our library didn't have.

My girls are drawn to the colourful, princessey, (and quite trashy) books that haunt the junior fiction sections and I want to try to change that. I don't want to read them nothing, junky books. So I look for classics to try to expand their minds to appreciate good things.

As I was walking around, I had a brilliant idea... My girls love love love roses. So working with what they have demonstrated as an interest (I know, I know, I've heard that a million times around homeschool blogs - work with the child's interests), I took them to the gardening section and got them to pick out two books on roses. They were full adult, reference books, but my girls fully jumped at it. While we were there, Sunshine also spotted a travel book on Paris (another love for my children - Paris - I am really looking forward to taking them there one day!) so I let her borrow that too.

The girls have had so much enjoyment out of those books since we got them. I think they received more attention than any picture books or junior fiction books I would normally got them, and they were learning! and they were filling their treasure houses of brains with good, wholesome and lovely things. Total win!

Here are my learnings from the experience:

1. Work with the child's interests! Especially when you are trying to expand their minds with good things.
2. Illustrated reference books are not too old for a 4 and 6 year old (provided the content is pure of course!).

Encouraging words for Christian mothers

Westley read this to me on 28 March 2006 and I wrote it down. It has been a huge source of encouragement to me over the past six years and I thought it may encourage some other mums out there. They are direct quotes from Rick Joyner in the "The Great Liberation" in the Morning Star Journal Vol. 15. No.4.

• "Our children have a greater calling than Solomon: they are called to reign with Christ. Therefore, every mother of a christian child is a true "queen mother"."
• "What women are called to do in the home, in intercession, and teaching children, is far more important than going out and making money."
• "It is said that our basic character traits are set by the time we are four years old. Therefore, this is when teaching and instruction are most critical. The mothers teaching has its greatest impact on the child during these most formative years, and this can have the greatest impact on the course of a person's life."

I hope they bring encouragment to you too!

Hopscotching the lesson away

Sunshine and Sweet-pea were asking me about hopscotch and showing me how they try to play it on the tiles inside the house. That got me thinking, why not give them some chalk to draw on the concrete, we could have our own hopscotch going on and they could get some exercise and turn it into a bit of a lesson. So that is what we did!

I didn't really have any learning objectives set, I know that Sunshine could always do with reinforcing her number writing so I knew she was going to write her own numbers. They both tried to draw the squares but it didn't work out so well so I did that bit and wrote the numbers for Sweet-pea (but she had to tell me which ones to write). As I they were doing it, I realised they were refining they're coordination (we introduced the pebble throw to skip blocks).

Once they were tired and ready to go inside, Sunshine insisted on drawing  a picture of it on paper and writing about it. So we rolled in some copywork to the activity also (I wrote a sentence about it for Sweet-pea which she copied over and Sunshine composed a very long sentence which I wrote out for her to copy). Turned into quite a big lesson which all enjoyed!

Education plan for week commencing 17 October 2011

After a pretty flat week, with minimal learning effort I feel the need to plan ahead for the coming week in order to actually achieve something of substance that I can feel good about. I should note though, that this is just a plan. I will not be a slave to home-education. It needs to adapt to us and fit in around our life and plans. With that in mind, I am not assigning work to specific days, but just general goals to achieve so I am free to do be spontaneous and if good weather is calling we can hit the beach if we want! So I guess this is more of an ideas prompting sheet to get me started...

Maths

1. Comparing different random items around the house to see which is taller or shorter, heavier or lighter, hotter or colder, or any other attributes that seem significant at the time.
2. Basic addition sums (single figured sums).
3. Build upon odd and even numbers and practice counting in twos.
4. Object counting. E.g., have 4 counters on one side, and 1 counter on another and ask Sunshine to add or remove counters so it equals the other side.

English

1. Read two books almost each day. Pick one to read multiple times in the week and then randomly choose a different 2nd book each time.
2. Talk more about letters, what makes up a word, what makes up a sentence, what makes up a story. How you can write stories with words or also with pictures.
3. Continue her handwriting workbook.

Always learning - homeschool plans for our big trip

I don't like to leave an easy opportunity to learn unlearnt so in addition to lots of random things I expect us to encounter, learn and discuss over our trip I have specifically planned the following homeschool activities.

• We went to the library and picked out two junior fiction books. I don't know if we will read both of them or even finish one of them, but I feel like just by starting out this way we are making good habits and planting good seeds.
• New colouring books and textas! I like to be really free with providing new colouring in books and textas. Besides being fun, it teaches the children concentration, develops their artistic skills and their fine motor skills.
• I splashed out on a scrap book for Sunshine and Sweet-pea for each of them to journal their trip. Sweet-pea will probably draw pictures, maybe paste some pictures, and write a word here or there. I plan for Sunshine to write a sentence about each day or so on something she has done or experienced, along with pictures (pasting or drawing). Oh, and when I say write a sentance, I mean she would decide what to write and I will write it on a scrap piece of paper and she will copy it into her book.

Incidentally, by the nature of this trip, there will be lots of socialisation with family and strangers, of different ages. Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, old family friends, cousins, children of old friends of mine, etc. Will be fun! :P

A cheap and cheerful homeschool activity

This afternoon we did 'cutting and pasting'. A fun way to spend an afternoon - Sunshine and Sweet-pea enjoy using sissors and who doesn't enjoy using glue?!

Basically, I look for opportunities to pick up magazines or interesting pamphletes. I have the inflight magazine from a recent plane ride, a travel brochure that I asked for at a local travel agency and a couple of wholesome magazines. We have a few childrens sissors, but I find they don't cut well, so we all share the one good pair we have and I supervise (although I have trained Sunshine and Sweet-pea on being sensible with sissors). Then they are free to cut and paste to their hearts content. I love that the images they are seeing are of far off lands, different landscapes and include things they don't encounter in our day-to-day Australian life.

An extension on the lesson for Sunshine was if she wanted to, I asked her to tell a story from the pictures she pasted, which she just loved to do and present to me and Sweet-pea.

Playin' shop

We like to keep things simple. We don't have a lot of money for fancy toys and we have tried to avoid accumulating a lot of "stuff" for our children. With that in mind, I am always trying to be resourceful and come up with new games or ways of playing with old toys and making the most of them.

I always loved playing shop as a child and from that came up with this game to introduce to my darlings. I cleared off their table to use as 'a counter'. I also cleared off some shelves to use as 'shop shelves' and laid out their play food in lines, like a mini supermarket. I got a container (the blue one on the windowsill) to act as the till, and put special cards in it from a board game (which would be used as the money). I got their Barbie computer thing that was given to us and pretended that was the main part of the register. Then I got out their Easter egg baskets to use. And then, I taught my children how to play shop. It was fun. They enjoyed it as did I! Here is a pic of the shop set up:

I didn't start this game with learning objectives other than to have fun, but I love that in having that fun, I continued a stream of learning which I am enjoying imparting to them (and look forward to continue imparting to them) - that being, commerce. I love teaching them how business works and how to engage in commerce.

Natural learning

Thought I'd share this piece of natural learning Sunshine and Sweet-pea have taken to in the last few weeks. They call it "play the game of [movie]". Basically, they pick a movie and put it on (usually a Barbie or another sort of animated movie), then they choose who will play who and act out the entire movie in front of the television while the movie is playing. They have costume changes (many different outfits for different parts of the movie - shoes included!). They make special swords with wooden spoons and tie ribbons on the end of the spoons.

Earlier today I wondered if it was good for them to be doing this so much. Shouldn't I encourage them to go outside instead? But then I realised what they were doing. They were naturally teaching themselves a range of things. Here is a short list of what I believe they were teaching themselves (that I can think of - I bet there are many more I can't think of):

1. Drama/acting - they were copying the actions of each character. Facial expressions and arm movements etc.


2. Reciting/memory - they were learning the words and speaking them over and over. Experiencing and reinforcing sentence structure and grammar.


3. Teamwork - working together to achieve an outcome.


4. Social behaviour - learning how other people relate and how to relate to each other whilst achieving the goal of "play the game of [movie]".


5. Interpretation - everything they did was an expression of what they were interpreting of what was occuring in the movie.


6. Independence and innovation - they made this game up themselves. They designed the rules and procedure and defined the outcome.


7. To entertain themselves - an extremely valuable skill in my eyes!


8. To experience natural learning and to be guided by their own interests - I believe this is a key to them developing a lifestyle of learning.

So that is just a few learnings that I can think of off the top of my head. I bet there are more. With all that swirling around in my head, yep, I think it is good for them; and I want to encourage them to "play the game of [movie]" without concern that they are watching too much television; and with peace of mind of knowing that even if I am not sitting down at a table with them making them doing structured lessons that they will learn anyway ... and have fun doing it!

Favourite homeschooling moment this week...

Favourite homeschooling moment this week was teaching Sunshine the difference between the number 3 and a capital E. We were in a coffee shop, I had no pen and I kept getting confused doing it back-to-front in the air to her, so I poured some water on the table and wrote with my finger, the water being my ink. She got it and I marvelled at how easy and fun educating at home is.

How I intoduced regular bible study to my children

I have always thought it a good thing to be able to start the day with reading the bible or time alone with God. Who wouldn't love to brave the day knowing he/she was already grounded in God's word or His Spirit? Would our behaviour be different? Would our thoughts be different? Would our day turn out differently? For me, the answer is yes. But it isn't easy, and I know for some people this is not the right time of the day for them. Westley for example, is not a morning person. His best time with God is in the evening, when it is dark and he can be outside, alone.

As a parent educator, I am often thinking about the habits I can teach my children, while they are young, so they can each be the best person they can be when they are adults. It is important to me that they have a personal relationship with the Lord, and I want to help them the best way I can. So I have started mini-bible studies with Sunshine and Sweet-pea. They have been responding well and by doing it in the morning, each day feels like a success. It is working for now. It may not always work and there may be interruptions from time to time, but I hope to continue with it as long as it is still working for us. So if you are wondering, this is what I do...

PREPARATION

• I read the paragraph sometime before I sit down with the children, so I am prepared for translating into a language they understand.

METHOD
In the morning not long after we wake up...

• I give them a 5-10 minute warning that we are about to do our bible reading together.
• I make a cup of tea.
• I get the beanbags out ready for them to sit on, and I sit down in my reading seat.
• I ask the girls to join me, Harrison has a beanbag too, but he is free to come and go as he pleases.
• We recap on the highlights of the previous day (or two if required) to set the scene for the new reading.
• I tell them I am going to read the scripture (about a paragraph, or theme - you know how chapters are split up under headings - I just kind of pick one of those chunks under a heading).
• I read it to them from my bible, the New King James version.
• I explain in language they understand the main points that happened.
• I ask them a few questions to check they listened to me.
• Now the fun part - drawing! I ask them to draw something from the story. I will usually ask Sunshine to write something too, which is me telling her the letters to write. 
• Then they get to show Daddy their awesome work and feel totally proud of the great job they did.

We have started with Luke, as I know my girls are excited by and a bit familiar with Jesus's birth so I thought it would increase their interest. So far so good, they ask me about it on the weekend because I haven't been doing it on weekends so I think that is a good sign :)

Picture study

Okay, I just did some great planning for picture studies that I thought I'd share. It is really simple, but has helped me get my head around things and maybe it will help you. I first got the idea for a picture study from Charlotte Mason's writings and various websites promoting Charlotte Mason's approach to education. I am very fond of Charlotte Mason's approach to education. One of the subjects Charlotte promoted was picture study. As someone who knows very little about paintings and drawings and artists who produced famous works, I thought this was important for my children to learn to appreciate (and me at the same time!).

OUTCOMES

1. To recognise that artists have his/her own style.
2. To enjoy looking at artwork or be able to appreciate the artist's talent.
3. To be able to identify an artist through his/her work.

METHOD
(some of the ideas below came from this article on the Homeschool World website).

• This method is targeted to an audience aged 5-11.
• Pick one artist to study for a few weeks.
• Look at only one picture per session.
• Talk very briefly about the artist. Keeping the information very simple like, the name of the artist, where they lived and when.
• Showing the child the picture and asking them to look at it for a few minutes.
• Asking the child to talk about the picture. What do they see? How does it make them feel? What colours are they using? As the child gets older I would remove the picture and ask them to describe it, or draw what they remember of it.
• Potential activity (I will treat this activity as purely optional at each session): Child can reproduce the artwork, or how the artwork makes them feel in their own way somehow. Ie, painting, drawing, craft, pasting.

RESOURCES

• Pictures will be found mostly online.
• Library might be good after we have studied the one artist for a few weeks so we can see multiple works in one (different) setting to bring it all together.
• A trip to the art museum.

ARTISTS TO STUDY

• Claude Monet (I plan to start with this one because I think it will appeal to Sunshine).
• Thomas Kinkade (we love his paintings so much, I must, must, must introduce him soon!).
• The four ninja turtles, Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo and Donatello (because it will be good for me to be able to distinguish each of their styles too).
• Rembrandt van Rijn
• Pablo Picasso (not a fan myself, but it will be good to show Sunshine how different artists can be).

... and that should keep us busy for the next nine months or so! I have a few more suggested artists on my list but I would like to look into them first before I officially put them on the list.