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A Homeschooler’s View of Education

August 2, 2006 by 1 Comment

My view of academics and education changed significantly throughout my years as a homeschool teacher. Once upon a time, I thought of education as something that ended with 12th grade graduation or was extended by some people with a foray into college. During my stint in college, there was an older gentleman whom we younger students joked about as being a “professional student” because he had been taking a class or two each semester for years. I did not realize then that education could be a lifelong endeavor; I just assumed he did not know what he wanted to be when he grew up. Now I can look back at my foolish naivete’ and be grateful that maturity eventually replaces youthful ignorance and its accompanying arrogance.

Education is merely the process of learning, and I continue to learn every day. Learning is learning, whether one is studying a foreign language or making a mental note to avoid the pothole down the block. Learning is the reason why we read the newspaper or watch the local weather forecast on television. We become more educated when we try a new recipe: at the very least, we learn whether or not we want to make that recipe again. Learning, education, and academics take on new, more personal meanings with the advent of homeschooling.

Legal homeschooling in our state required that we submit documents annually to the state Department of Education. One form had boxes to check to indicate your students’ participation in various extra-curricular activities. At first, I viewed those activities in much the same straightforward way that any other educator would. After a few years of homeschooling, however, my viewpoint had shifted, and I began to see things a bit differently — from a homeschooler’s point of view.

Regular library visits? Well, we had never experienced an irregular visit, no matter how infrequently they occurred, so, yes, we planned regular library visits.

Field trips? Yes, we participated in field trips, whether to the grocery store or with more structured, group activities.

Music lessons? Yes, group singing would be taking place at church. There would also be the intermittent “Happy Birthday” choruses and Christmas carols, singing along with children’s videos, banging on the pots and pans, and singing the latest catchy advertising jingles. (It does not have to cost money to be a real lesson.)

Sports activities? Most definitely! You cannot make these children sit still for long! I did not see this as requiring us to join the local soccer club; to me, it could also mean playing horsey with Dad, riding your bike, or splashing in the wading pool — getting off of the sofa and out of the house.

Other planned social experiences? This must have been listed just to satisfy those weirdos who think that homeschoolers never leave the house, but, yes, we did plan to experience society from time to time, and Wal-Mart was typically a melting pot of society in our community.

Another required document was our “plan” for the year’s lessons. I learned to view that with the same earnestness with which I viewed preparation time for dinner each night: we would eat dinner each night, so therefore there would be some type of preparation for it. One night’s dinner may require several hours of hands-on preparation, while another night’s meal may only require phoning the pizza delivery guy. Either way, we ate. Similarly, some lessons received intensive, hands-on preparation, and others were delivered by flipping open a book, but either way, we learned. My Plan of Instruction did not list detailed lesson plans, but did list the approximate amount of time each student would spend per day on each subject (per week for lower grades). [See also Guilt-Free Lesson Plans and Scheduling] If we spent more time or less time on any certain area on any certain day, what did it matter? Some lessons were fast-food snacks, and other lessons were seven-course-meal events. The learning itself was what mattered, not the speed of the delivery, and there were many times when we learned more from the spontaneous, quick-snack lessons than we did from the this-took-me-all-day-to-prepare lessons.

Information of academic importance obviously means different things to different people. Another mandate on our annual report stated that a revised form was to be filed if any of the listed information changed during the year. Throughout the years that my children were enrolled in public school, we were rarely informed of changes to the routine, including some important changes in the staff. After we had been homeschooling for a few years, we were (again) not notified when the district’s Homeschooling Coordinator left on a two-week vacation, leaving a letter of resignation and two weeks’ notice on her desk, a gaping hole in the district’s staff, and many confused families in a state somewhere between shock and limbo — during the busiest time for the district office, the month before the fall semester began. Therefore, based on their precedent, I concluded that most of the changes I could make to our plans would be of minor significance to the district, and I switched textbooks and materials whenever I felt the need to do so, Guilt-Free, without bothering to inform them of such trivial details.

My view of the ideal teaching methods for individual subjects also changed. Once my students were reading well on their own, I allowed their “reading” course to be done in bed at night as a “decompression” time before Lights Out. I found that I was able to monitor their reading ability in their other subjects well enough that I no longer bothered to keep track of their personal, pleasure reading for a “reading class.”

Education, learning, and academics mean different things to different people. “Professional” educators view learning as an activity that takes place under their highly trained supervision. I, as a homeschool educator, see learning as more of a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week pursuit. We do not always need books or plans or even a stone-faced serious attitude in order to come away from something as a smarter person. Education and learning can and do take place in the garage or on the playground, while doing chores or while having fun, early in the morning or late into the night. Education is the process of learning. Learn something every day.

Filed Under: Attitudes, Encouragement for Parents, Homeschool v. Public School, Homeschooling as a Lifestyle, Learning Outside the Books, Legal Records

Teach Your Children the Art of Amusing Themselves

June 19, 2006 by 3 Comments

“I’m bored.” “Mommy, come play with me.” Have you heard these laments lately? By teaching your children to enjoy a variety of “by-myself” activities, you can prevent the incessant whining, cure the boredom, and gain a tiny bit of free time for yourself. You will also be fostering independence in your children by teaching them the basics of teaching themselves.

Your time, Mom, is too valuable to be spent merely entertaining your children. Individual entertainment is a skill very valuable in homeschooling. A student of any age needs to be able to learn on his own, and solitary time is the ideal situation in which to practice independent study. Once they have acquired interest in a few solo activities, your students can entertain themselves while you tend to their siblings, to your housework, or to your own leisure pursuits. They can begin to see the advantages of striving to complete their schoolwork quickly in order to return to their own recreational activities. Children who learn how to entertain themselves will be much more content personally and able to adapt to new circumstances better than will their counterparts who rely on others for entertainment.

Just as some tiny tots need to be spoon-fed the first bite or two of a new food before taking over to feed themselves, some children may need guidance in learning to play by themselves. Start an activity with them, and then slowly wean yourself away from the action: dump out a 100-piece jigsaw puzzle, and get Sammy started on assembling the easy border pieces while you sort out the pieces for a few main elements in the puzzle. (Do not assemble the parts completely, just sort or put a few pieces together to help Sammy along. This is the all-important “teaser” stage: you want to make it irresistible for Sammy to finish the puzzle.) Before long, Sammy will be engrossed in his task with enough confidence to carry him through, and you can excuse yourself to shuffle the laundry, promising to check on his progress later (then be sure that you do come back to praise him). Sometimes, Mom or an older sibling may need to give a few quick lessons in a new activity, but the real learning sets in when the child begins to explore a craft or leisure pursuit on his own. Be sure to praise the child for his time dedicated to working alone, and show him how valuable the skills are that he is developing.

Consider these leisure pursuits that work well as independent activities:

–jigsaw puzzles
–crossword & other word puzzles
–sudoku & other number/logic puzzles
–solitaire card games
–sewing, crocheting, knitting & other needle arts
–painting & drawing
–whittling & woodworking
–Lego’s & other construction toys
–building models
–gardening
–reading
–bicycling, rollerblading, & other individual sports
–(what can you add to this list?)

On one particularly lazy day when my children were small, we had picnicked at a city park and the children were growing bored with the playground equipment. With too much month left at the end of the money, we were seeking no-cost diversions, but boredom was overtaking the usual ideas. As we sat at a picnic table discussing what else we could do for the day, I picked up a handful of the small stones and pea gravel that covered the playground surface. Fingering the tiny rocks led to watching them tumble across each other. Before long, we had stumbled upon a new and challenging game: Rock Stacking. We spent the next hour stacking up the pebbles and seeing who could create the tallest stacks. Height was replaced by quantity as we began counting who could stack the most rocks before their stack toppled over. Soon other children had joined us and we had several families involved with our new game, all cheering each other’s accomplishments. Steady hands were as valuable as a sharp eye for spotting flat surfaces on the rocks, and all participants had to be careful not to jiggle the table and send everyone’s stack back to the starting line. It was a wonderfully enjoyable afternoon that I will not soon forget, especially the amazement on the faces of the children we did not know, who begged to be included in our fun — with not a penny of expenditure to anyone. I am sure that none of those other children would ever previously have considered joining a friend who asked, “Hey, want to go stack rocks?”

As they grow into adults, the inventiveness and creativity that has been developed through individual activities and solo entertainment will show forth in the ability to provide cheap (or free) alternatives to eating out or going to movies. Children who have grown up constantly being entertained by their parents or older siblings have little imagination for how to spend “down time,” so they continue to seek someone to entertain them and need a constant flurry of activity to keep them happy (usually at considerable financial cost). My daughter’s college friends quickly ran out of money and ideas for recreation, prompting the invention of her Shopping Trip Bingo game, an exercise in no-cost entertainment. We have often gone on short nature hikes as a family, and our children have continued their love of that no-cost activity by taking special friends back to our favorite lake for quiet walks and peaceful getaways.

To paraphrase an old saying, “If you give a man a fish, that man knows where to go to get fish.” So if you consistently entertain your children when they are bored, your children will always know whom to go to for entertainment. However, a child who can occupy himself with satisfying leisure activities is learning hobbies that will last a lifetime. The more he explores and learns on his own, the more he hones his skills for teaching himself — skills valuable for homeschooling and for continuing his education throughout life. Any time that you spend in teaching your child a solitary activity (knitting, for example), will be returned to you in multiplied hours that you can dedicate to other pursuits while your child carries on independent activities. Not every child can automatically see how to entertain himself, some need more guidance than others, and a few will continue to need Mom’s approval and encouragement from time to time, but a child who learns to amuse himself will be opening the door to a world full of knowledge and adventure.

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Behavior, Family Unity, Homeschool How-To's, Homeschooling as a Lifestyle, Kinesthetic Learning, Learning Outside the Books, Tactile Learning

The Forgotten Role Model: Spouse

April 5, 2006 by Leave a Comment

I have been noticing some differences lately between single adults and married adults, specifically in the way both types of people think and make decisions. I must admit that, at first, I had thought of the single adults I know as just being a little “quirky” in their thinking processes, and then I realized why they seem to do things differently than I or other married people do: an entirely different decision-making process is needed for couples than is used by single adults.

Single adults do not have anyone else to be accountable to. Single adults do not have a spouse for a sounding board or to take into consideration before any major decisions are made. Married adults automatically have another person for those purposes, but that does not mean that all married adults automatically give consideration to their spouses when making decisions. Having or being a spouse requires that decisions should be made with concern for your mate’s needs and desires. Married adults who make decisions as though they are still autonomous singles are destined to become single again. Sadly, their marriages will fail or at least will not be as successful and satisfying as will the marriage of two people who are both dedicated to fulfilling the needs and desires of their mates.

A sad fact of the world we live in today is that more and more children are being raised in single-parent households. Regardless of the reasons behind this phenomenon, the parents must fill in the gaps that these children experience. A single parent is doing double-duty, serving as both father and mother in many situations, even sometimes when custody of the children is a shared arrangement. My heart aches for the single moms and single dads who are doing their best to raise their children alone, and the homeschooling single parents are simply working miracles, in my estimation. However, while they are providing the household income and nurturing their children, there is an unfortunate side effect that they cannot effectively cover on their own. Their children do not see that parent modeling the role of spouse. Children commonly see their parents as a mother or a father, but not as a wife or a husband. The relationship of parent to child is usually restricted to the Mom or Dad role. The single parent is forced to make the major decisions alone. While advice may be sought from friends, co-workers, or grandparents, the decision ultimately rests only on the shoulders of that single adult.

Occasionally, an opportunity arises with my own children when I can give them a glimpse into what it means to me to be a wife, rather than always representing a mother. I point out the same things for my husband, how he is not just a father, his role is also much more complex. When we have major decisions to make, we discuss them together, but not always in front of our children. Therefore, it is important to give the children a synopsis of our decision-making processes so that they can realize how both husband and wife can influence the outcome. While the choices faced by single adults usually come down to a simple yes or no option, the conclusions reached by couples almost invariably contain some level of compromise on behalf of both parties. An adult who is completely unwilling to compromise for joint decisions is thinking with a single-adult’s mindset.

In our family, “checking in” has become routine now, but it stems from a very serious traffic accident that occurred only weeks into our marriage. That first time that my husband did not arrive home from work in a timely manner led to our habit of always letting the other know where you are and when you are leaving. Recently my husband had an after-hours reward party with some of his co-workers. He called me even before committing to attending, just to make sure I had not planned an early dinner. I encouraged him to go have fun at the celebration because he had earned it as much as any member of his designing team, but I understood and appreciated why he checked in first. Some people may not have felt obliged to notify their spouses, but in our family, the courtesy is commonplace. The single adult has no need to check with anyone before making decisions; the single parent may only need to notify a baby-sitter in case of a delayed arrival.

An acquaintance of ours has recently built a new house and purchased all new furnishings for it, replacing everything that was lost in a major house fire. This acquaintance is currently single and has proven it with every decision and every purchase. Every construction detail and every appliance was chosen without regard for any other person. If this homeowner had been married, many of these choices may have had different outcomes. As I toured this new home, I saw many things that I would have preferred to have another way. I could see many decisions that my husband and I would have discussed and done differently, had it been our home, but for this homeowner, discussions and compromises were not Standard Operating Procedure.

The single parent who is blessed with another chance at marriage will once again have the opportunity to provide the role model of spouse to the children, but while still single, it is an extremely difficult pattern to portray. This is where the rest of us can help. I have frequently found myself in the position of being the only married parent that some of my children’s friends know personally. In those cases, I carefully watch how I live out that role, so that I can be an effective role model to them for what I feel a spouse should be. When an appropriate opportunity arises, I speak up and share my opinion of how situations are handled differently by a wife than by a mom, or by a husband than by a dad.

Television programs are often, unfortunately, the most listened to voices and most watched role models in the lives of our youngsters today. I doubt that a suitable role model for a spouse could be found anywhere on television. The characters portrayed do not usually submit to a Biblical system of authority, but are usually involved in comic role reversals, continual insults and criticism, and deceitful plots against each other. Men are seldom seen as strong heads of their households; more often, they are depicted as beer-drinking buffoons, interested only in sports, and who depend upon their wives to keep the children in line and the household running efficiently. Television programming is rarely considered to be purely fictional entertainment; instead, it has gone so far now as to redefine “reality” for us.

The importance of taking time to be together as a couple, aside from time spent as a family (with the children), is well documented and well publicized. What I am emphasizing is the importance of demonstrating that spousal role to my children throughout the daily routine, not limited to special events and date nights. As I go through my days, whenever an opportunity presents itself, I will point out to my daughter, my son, and now their significant-others the things that I feel are important for me as a wife and the things that are important for my spouse as a husband. As a wife, I respect my husband’s opinion, knowing that he often has greater insight than I do into certain facets of life. As a wife, I try to keep our home as a place of solace and respite from the industrial world where my husband spends his days. As a husband, he looks after the safety of his family, ensuring that we have reliable vehicles to drive and maintaining our home as a secure and cozy shelter. As a husband, he provides for our financial security through a good job and working additional hours to earn extra money when unexpected needs arise. Major decisions are discussed together, with input from our children when the outcome will affect the entire family, but the children need to see that those decisions are made as a team, since we are not independent individuals. The role of spouse means that I am a member of a slightly larger but more important group, the couple, and that I should not neglect my responsibilities to that group. I must repeat this–having a spouse requires that decisions should be made with concern for your spouse’s needs and desires. Married adults who make decisions without regard for their spouse’s welfare or opinion are at a very great risk of becoming single again.

As we strive to train up our children in the ways we feel are best, we should try to include all of the roles they will possibly fulfill in life. I am seeing more children growing up with a view of themselves as future parents, but I seldom hear them speaking of themselves as future spouses or expressing concern over what their future spouse might think of a given situation. It would be sad, indeed, to prepare our children to be parents without preparing them to be spouses at the same time.

Filed Under: Attitudes, Family Unity, Learning Outside the Books, Parenting, Role-Modeling

Shopping Trip Bingo

March 24, 2006 by Leave a Comment

Once upon a time, a girl named Jenny went to college in a big city far, far away. It was fun. She made many new friends. They went to classes together and studied together and had all sorts of fun together. Then one day, Jenny and all of her friends realized that they were broke. No one had any more money for movies, or shopping, or any of the things they usually did for fun. Jenny’s friends were very sad. They had all studied very hard and needed a break. They wanted to go have some fun. They wanted to go shopping at the mall, but they had no money to buy things.

Then Jenny had an idea. “Let’s play BINGO!” said Jenny. “Oh, that’s boring,” said her friends. “I know how to make it fun!” said Jenny, and she disappeared into her dorm room. When she came back out a few minutes later, Jenny was holding several small cards. The cards were divided up into squares like Bingo cards, but each square had words written in it, instead of numbers. “Now let’s go to the mall, and I will show you how to play,” said Jenny.

When they got to the mall, Jenny gave each person a card and a pencil. “We will all walk around the mall like we always do, but you have to find the things written in the boxes. The first person to find all of their things and cross them off will win the game!” said Jenny. “Wow! This sounds FUN!” said her friends. Jenny and her friends had so much fun playing her new game that they played it over and over. They loved to go the mall and play Jenny’s Mall Bingo game. Jenny and her friends were happy again, and they did not have to spend any money. That made them extra happy.

* * * * * * * * * *

You do not have to be in college or live near the Mall of America to enjoy Jenny’s game. Your children may enjoy doing this during long car trips or during grocery shopping trips with Mom. Adapt your bingo cards to the area that you will be visiting, and keep your children occupied in boredom-free bliss.

MOA Bingo consisted of a patchwork block of random items to spot during study-break trips to the Mall of America. Suddenly, instead of meandering through the mall, bemoaning their lack of money for shopping, the students had a mission — finding all the items on their bingo cards. Each trip yielded more bizarre items to include on the cards for the next visit.

The Mall of America houses a travel store with posters of far-away places and stuffed toys of exotic animals, in addition to the usual mall-fare of sports shops, clothing stores, and a wide variety of shoppers. The bingo cards contained a balance of hard-to-find and easy-to-find items, along with common, everyday, household objects that can be hard to find in the shopping mall setting. Gift wrapping counters, vending machines, and First Aid Stations are often overlooked while shopping, but become of vital importance in the strategy of Mall Bingo.

Players had to become creative in finding their listed items, especially if their opponents craftily steered them away from the obvious sources. Your card might list “Mickey Mouse,” but your opponent has carefully kept you away from the Disney Store. Now is the time to improvise by heading into a bookstore and looking in the collectibles section. However, the same strategy will work for “Ronald McDonald” if you are trying to steer your opponent away from the Food Court.

Sample items from Mall Bingo cards:
—Card A
–obelisk
–snake
–red shoe
–#21
–aspirin
–Ronald McDonald

—Card B
–pyramid
–tree frog
–green hat
–#52
–tape
–Mickey Mouse

Notice how the easier-to-find pyramid is balanced by the harder-to-find tree frog. The obelisk is hard to find, but snakes (oddly) were easier to find. Random numbers could be spotted on sports jerseys or price tags. Two or three players stayed together in one group with each individual working to steer the group in favorable directions, but larger groups could split up and work as teams with one card per team. The objects were not purchased, and did not even have to be for sale, but someone besides the player had to witness the object before the college student could check an item off of his card.

My son used the same concept to stay alert during a particularly monotonous college class: Professor Bingo. The squares listed the professor’s many habits, turning them from repetitive mannerisms into delightful antics. Would the prof misplace his chalk, would he hitch up his pants, would he argue against his own notes, or would he emphasize a statement by flicking imaginary water from his fingers?

This game can be adapted to your personal needs. Use more or fewer items, depending on the skill level of your players. On your food-buying trips, teach your little ones to recognize fruits, vegetables, or other items by using pictures from the grocery ads instead of words on the cards, or play it like the Alphabet Game by challenging your kiddies to find a grocery item for each letter of the alphabet.

Having fun does not always have to mean spending money. Our family has invented many enjoyable activities from whatever our circumstances were, and Mall Bingo is a prime example. Now, who wants to go to the mall?

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Homeschooling as a Lifestyle, Kinesthetic Learning, Learning Outside the Books, Visual Learning

The Value of Supplemental Activities

March 2, 2006 by 1 Comment

A friend recently posed an intriguing question to a group of homeschooling moms: “If money were no object, what would you purchase first for your homeschool?” The usual wish-list items came out: specific curriculum choices, books, more books, shelves for all the books, rooms just for school stuff, and books. However, I was the most surprised by reading a spontaneous part of my own answer: “For us, it wasn’t the curriculum itself that ‘made’ homeschooling — it was the extra-curricular activities and supplemental things we did that we remember most and learned the most from.” It was an aspect of homeschooling that I had never truly pondered before, at least not in so many words. I have often suggested various activities to help struggling students bridge the learning styles gap with assorted curricula, but suddenly I was seeing activities as The Most Important Part of any homeschooling experience.

It is not the curriculum itself that matters most; it is what you do with the program and what you do besides the program that will make all the difference in your homeschooling endeavor. Supplemental activities can turn a mediocre program into an educational experience far better than the most renowned program on the market. The activities you choose can be tailored to your child’s individual needs and interests, whereas a boxed program must be universally applicable.

Some programs are better than others, but that still goes only so far. My regular readers already know how much I loved Miquon Math for grades 1-3, but the suggested activities were what really drove the concepts home. Practice away from the workbooks and playing and experimenting with Cuisenaire rods are what solidified the knowledge that was presented in the books. Saxon Math effectively used real-life examples through word problems to teach the students how to set up a formula. (Once they have the formula, any math student can solve the formula.) Our supplemental activities for Saxon math included applying the formulas to more areas of real life: relating fractions to pies and candy bars, doubling recipes for practice using fractions, calculating the areas, perimeters, and angles for home improvement projects, and applying the mathematics of probabilities to everyday situations in my students’ lives. When my daughter had trouble understanding probability from the textbook example of red marbles and blue marbles, I changed the problem to fit her teddy bear collection. Suddenly, her favorite white polar bear stood out in marked contrast to the other bears, and the chances of selecting him at random from a pile of stuffed bears was more easily understood.

We played a great deal with construction toys, but we always built something, even if our projects were not elaborate architectural models. We never stacked the bricks just for the sake of stacking bricks. Instructions for Erector Set models or K’nex figures were a launching pad for our imaginations as we challenged ourselves to combine patterns or build bigger or better designs. Real life usually requires you to have some type of plan, so our activities always had a basic plan as well. We dared to dream, and we learned through the trying, whether we succeeded or not.

We are all familiar with the jokes about students who put a book underneath their pillows, hoping to absorb information by osmosis while they slept. We smile and laugh, knowing that there is no possible way for that to happen, but many times we urge a child to “read the book,” expecting him to absorb all the information in that manner. If the child is adept at visual learning, it may happen, but so much more knowledge and understanding can be gained through the addition of a few supplemental activities. Activities break down the barriers of learning styles, making it possible to teach your child in the way he learns best, no matter what curriculum you are using.

When I took a college chemistry course, I worked industriously at memorizing vast quantities of information. They were only meaningless words to me, but I forced myself to memorize them so that I could reproduce them on test papers. However, through working in the chemistry lab, experimenting with the acids, bases, minerals, and gases, I began to understand the concepts behind those words. I had read the book, and I had learned the facts, but I did not gain understanding until I got into a supplemental activity. Watching bubbles form in a beaker of water as electrodes forced the hydrogen and oxygen molecules to separate made the atomic bonding process straightforward and uncomplicated. It was right there in front of me. I could watch it happen. I collected bubbles of the two gases in separate test tubes and proved their identities with another test. A similar experiment electroplated a nickel coin with the copper from a penny. The diagrams my professor scribbled on the chalkboard became stop-motion animations of the molecular breakdown process. He showed me through symbols and arrows the explanation for what I saw forming in the beaker. It was not sleight-of-hand illusion; it was science taking place at my fingertips. It was not something I could learn sufficiently from merely reading a book. I had read about the process, but actually doing it made the reading portions of my lesson obsolete.

Supplemental activities do not have to be expensive or use fancy materials. Many wonderful, educational activities can be obtained from the simple things you already have around the house.
* Read aloud and discuss plot lines, characters, and what-do-you-think-will-happen-next.
* Play with art and craft materials, even if you have no natural artistic ability whatsoever. If you have difficulty drawing, get off the paper and try “sculpting” with Play-Doh — maybe you are more of a three-dimensional thinker.
* Draw diagrams, even if you have no natural artistic ability whatsoever. The simple chalkboard illustrations that have helped me gain understanding were not artistic or even dimensionally accurate, but I still learned and understood.
* Use manipulatives: hands-on learning aids, whether they are homemade flash cards, things for counting and sorting, or a clock-face made from a paper plate and cardboard “hands.” If it helps your student understand a concept, it is worth your time, trouble, and expense.
* Build models. Who cares if popsicles sticks do not resemble quality building materials? I bought my students a small package of pre-notched “popsicle” sticks (think miniature, flat Lincoln Logs) in the craft department of Wal-Mart. They never looked like much when we built things with them, but the knowledge gained from the process of fitting them together was irreplaceable.
* Do experiments. A vinegar and baking soda reaction is fascinating to someone who has never watched it before. Woodburning with nothing more than a magnifying glass and the sun is another unforgettable experience (especially when you stop paying attention to where you have the light focused and your leg suddenly gets hot).
* Play games. Children sometimes balk at spending more time studying their lessons, but have you ever had a child turn down the chance to play a game? Any game using money is math; many games require forethought and strategy, and all games teach sportsmanship. Get together with other homeschooling families and share your favorite games with each other.
* Invent a new game: take a concept that your students need work on and invent a new game for practicing that concept. Make the pieces yourself or borrow them from other games and write all the necessary rules for some real-life problem-solving experience. I dare you to try it.
* Take on hosting a group project (even if it is nothing more than a Monopoly marathon) and enlist your students to help you plan and execute it. We learned much more from preparing large-scale events than we ever could have learned from merely participating in them. My daughter first ventured into administrative duties when we tackled an event that combined several homeschool support groups. The skills she developed then still serve her today in retail management.
* GO see things and DO stuff: zoos, museums, libraries, etc. A “family pass” will often be usable at more than one location. We purchased a season-long family pass to a small local zoo, only to find that it also entitled us to free admission to a much larger zoo in another city an easy day-trip away. Our pass also included other zoos, history museums, art museums, and science museums for a full year. For a little more than the standard admission for one family visit, we were able to take in multiple wonderful experiences. Another amazing surprise for me was how fascinating unfamiliar libraries were to my children. We dropped by the public library in another city and ended up spending hours exploring it and seeing how its features differed from our local library. Whether you take an extended, educational, family vacation or just walk around your neighborhood noticing the architectural differences, it can be a memorable learning experience.

Anything that takes place outside of the textbooks or outside of the house is always memorable. If I were to ask my children to name their “Top 10 Favorite Things” from our homeschooling days, none of their responses would include the textbooks we used. Their “Top 1,000” list would barely touch on textbooks. Let me say this again: it is not the curriculum itself that matters the most. It is what you do with the program and what you do besides the program that will make all the difference in your homeschooling experience.

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Auditory Learning, Curriculum Choices, Encouragement for Parents, Homeschool How-To's, Homeschooling as a Lifestyle, Kinesthetic Learning, Learning Outside the Books, Tactile Learning

The Beauty of Logic (and Sudoku Puzzles)

November 11, 2005 by Leave a Comment

There are currently two distinct groups reading these words. The first group is those who are nodding their heads in agreement with the “beauty of logic” sentiment in the title and saying, “Yes, logic does have a certain beauty and precision.” The other group are non-math people who are wondering what in the world I could be referring to, while shaking their heads and thinking, “She has really gone off the deep end this time — logic is just painful and confusing!”

By “the beauty of logic,” I mean that there is always a right answer and a wrong answer in logical situations. You know where you stand with logic. Numbers, for example, are logical concepts with finite definitions: two always means exactly two; two never means three; two never means purple. Word meanings can become fuzzy and illogical, especially in the English language, where a word such as love can mean things as diverse as: 1) a deep emotional attachment [love my husband]; 2) nothing, such as a score of zero in a tennis game [two-love]; or 3) an intense desire for or appreciation of something [love this pizza; love that song].

I had tried to share my appreciation of math and logic with my children, but my young son’s distaste of anything math-related kept him from developing a similar emotion. Until now. The summer of his pre-calculus course revealed to him his true abilities in math, but his current semester of university math is opening the door to fun math and logic. And dragging him in. As a computer science major, he is taking a class with the tongue-twisting name of Combinatorics — an exploration of math as arrangements and patterns of numbers. That professor recently assigned some math puzzles of a sort that I have been doing for a long time just for fun. (Yes, I am a sick, sick person, and I do need to get out more often.) It seems that a large portion of the world is discovering these puzzles (now called “Sudoku”), as newspapers are adding them to their daily fare of crosswords and “Jumble” word puzzles.

My son was home for a weekend recently and inquired about these puzzles. He knew they were included in his upcoming assignments and wanted some inside information on how to solve them. Sudoku puzzles consist of a 9 x 9 grid in which the digits 1-9 are entered into each row, column, and 3×3-grid portion so that the digits do not repeat. Enter the Beauty of Logic concept. Logic dictates that the puzzles can be solved through systematic strategies, not merely through trial-and-error guessing. As I explained a few tips to my son for solving the puzzles, his admittedly-non-math-person girlfriend became interested and asked for a sample puzzle to try. When I headed to the computer to print some, my husband called after me, “Print one for me, too.” Our evenings since then have been consumed with clipboards, pencils, erasers, and puzzles as we compare notes on solving strategies and progress to higher difficulty levels.

Finding the one correct digit for any square of the puzzle should be done through a process of elimination: these could work, but those cannot work, so this one must work. I cannot arbitrarily decide that a three would look nice in this spot or that I have not used any fives lately, so I should give a five the opportunity to participate in this corner. The best digit for completing a row is not a matter for discussion: when the other eight digits have already been used, there can be only one possible choice for the final digit. The rules of the game specify that each of the digits must be used only once in each subsection. Therefore, if a digit appears twice, I must assume it is a mistake to be corrected, not something to be tolerated as an alternative solution. If you and I work at solving identical puzzles, our solutions should also be identical — if they do not match, we cannot both be right.

That is what I see as The Beauty of Logic: there are distinct strategies that can be employed to arrive at the correct answer; we do not have to stumble blindly, depending on guesswork and instincts to succeed. There can be many wrong answers, but there is one correct answer. Logic is not a matter of interpretation, nor is it different things to different people. A wrong answer is not open to debate. Incorrect answers must be changed, not tolerated or lauded as “diversity.” If only the rest of life could be so simple.

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Encouragement for Parents, Learning Outside the Books, Math, Visual Learning

The Importance of Play in Education

September 21, 2005 by Leave a Comment

Back in the days when my children were toddlers and our home resembled a Fisher-Price obstacle course, I used to envy a local toy lending library. What if I could follow that method at home and keep all toys, books, and other childhood paraphernalia sorted into locked cabinets, allowing my “patrons” to borrow only three items per week? The restrictions could be expanded to enforce the replacement of all playthings after 5:00 pm and prohibit their removal before 9:00 am the next morning. Nothing would be allowed to remain on the floor in major traffic paths, puzzle pieces would never be lost (or eaten), and life would be peaceful and pleasant. That, however, was only a daydream, and like nearly all daydreams, it is not compatible with reality.

As messy as playtime can become, I have learned to see the tremendous value in it for education. When I enrolled my son in public Kindergarten (yes, that was a mistake, but I remedied it the following year), the teacher spent a brief time with each child and assessed their skills. She praised me for having given my son so many different experiences, from trips to the zoo to reading books to him. She praised his ability to use scissors, crayons, markers, and paintbrushes with relative proficiency. She said he ranked far above some of her previous students in his knowledge and talents. Silly me, all this time I had thought that was what parents were supposed to do with their children. What has filled the past five years, if a child entering Kindergarten has never used crayons or sat on a lap to hear a story?

I have friends who have recently returned from several years as missionaries in Africa. In hearing the mundane details of their daily routines, I began to see deeper into the value of children’s playtime. The toys I used to dread picking up day after day are not available to most African-bush children or to the poorer children of any culture. The education supplied by what we consider to be simple toys was demonstrated in the adult man who was employed as household help for this missionary family. He worked for them for several years and yet never could master the task of stacking the bowls, pans, or containers in the kitchen cupboards. The colorful, nesting cups that my children stacked into towers, knocked over, nested together, dumped out, and stacked again had not played a foundational role in this man’s education. As a result, he was not familiar with a concept that is so incredibly common to most of us. This gap in his education left him confused as to how to successfully arrange the kitchenware with largest on the bottom and smallest on the top. Repeated demonstrations and instructions did not help. His lack of experience in the early years had left a seemingly permanent mark.

Just as adults can become bored with doing the same repetitive tasks over and over, children also appreciate variety in their playtime. If I can belabor the nesting cups topic just a bit longer, any variety within that task will act to further the child’s understanding of the nesting concept, whether various shapes of cups (round, square, hexagonal, etc.) or different types of stackable items (paper cups, Mom’s measuring cups with handles, or an assortment of empty shoe boxes in graduated sizes). Other types of toys expand upon this same nesting principle: stacking colored rings onto a peg in size order, nesting dolls, even shape-sorter toys combine the principle of matching with nesting the object into its coordinating hole. Likewise, variety enriches lessons of all types for older children; hands-on learning goes much farther than simply breaking up the boredom.

Children learn from the moment they take their first breath, from learning how to express discomfort and that their expression results in someone’s attention to those needs, to observing how others around them eat, speak, walk, and draw pictures. Toy tools give early practice to the budding carpenters, just as toy kitchens help to prepare the future cooks. Puzzles teach problem solving, fine-tune motor skills, and improve observation and memory skills. Dolls offer children “parenting” opportunities, from dressing the baby to cuddling and comforting. Art and craft materials broaden a child’s ability to express his ideas, improve motor coordination, and satisfy the grandparents’ need for something to put on the refrigerator door. Stop for a moment to ponder the educational gaps in the child who grows up without any of these “playtime” skills.

It has been said that “play is a child’s work,” and there are many aspects where that is true. Children work hard at their playtime, often becoming physically exhausted through their efforts and needing a rest from playtime. We should also expect that they will experience mental fatigue when they have been engrossed in play tasks that require thinking and problem solving, such as nesting the boxes mentioned above (for the littlest ones) or assembling a jigsaw puzzle (for somewhat older children).

Moms and Dads, although your family’s collection of playthings may never seem to stop growing and rarely seems to be out from underfoot, be assured that those toys are serving a very valuable purpose in your little ones’ lives. The more experiences you can offer your children with widely varied play activities, including problem solving concepts or art and craft materials, the better equipped your children will be when it comes time for them to delve into “real” learning experiences.

[See also Sorting Toys Is Algebra]

Filed Under: Encouragement for Parents, Encouraging Your Student, Family Unity, Learning Outside the Books, Preschoolers, Tactile Learning
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