The key to learning
Some days you think so hard for answers. Other days it just clicks. Tonight, it clicked for me. I got it! I figured something out that has been on my mind for years. I have always been interested in how children (and now my own children) learn. I love observing and to follow their learning development. I know the answer to a self initiated learning from the child is through interest and motivation. So I always wondered how I can keep my children motivated.
For me, this is what makes sense in terms of giving a motivation to learn for my children. We, the parents, need to show them how we use various subjects in real life. The school environment is so artificial and unnatural from anything starting with the classroom where children just sit, to the ways of learning with is through boring practice books.
It has to be the complete opposite. They need to be in the REAL world and do REAL things, so that there is a purpose behind their practice. Take reading for instance. Reading and writing is pretty boring in schools, repeating the same letter for a whole page etc. Why force it. As soon as a child sees all the uses reading and writing has in the real world, they will understand the importance of learning and become interested and motivated without any force. That is how I do it at home and I am having a hard time trying to keep up with my little ones. I love seeing them so enthustiastic.
Learning how to write and read could be so simple, because it is all around us. Take our child’s favorite book for instance. There are letters right there. Your child does not need to know what they are, but the fact that he/she knows you are using them to tell him a story is what matters. Still, despite all the words around us in our real world, children find schools boring and end up hating home work.
Add comment March 30, 2009
compassionatekids
Tags: home, homeschooling, how child, how children learn, parenting, unschoo, unschooling curriculum
Another Reason to Homeschool!
As my children are getting closer to school age, I am getting myself prepared to start homeschooling. We don’t have second thoughts about it. We know this is what is right for our family. Today I heard terrible news about public schools that just gave me (and perhaps others) just another reason to home school!
The learning approach in public schools is not only a huge flaw, it is getting worse. To keep scores high, they are cutting down on recess for the children. Thinking that if they spend more time in the class room they will learn more. The national number of schools that hold recess every day is now down to 67%. Apparently recess might not even exist in the future! It’s the pressure on keeping high scores.
If the scores are not high enough something in the system is obviously wrong. Thinking more time to learn will fix a failing system will not even come close to success.
Here they have these discussions on the news, debating over what is the best way for children to learn. Some insist that recess improves class room attentiveness and concentration. Another concern is of course the increased obesity.
For me and I’m sure all other homeschooling parents, the solution is so obvious and the curriculum they use for public schools will always be a failure.
The key to learning will always be motivation. You can never force learning onto children. Teachers need to spend more time (not the kids) to get to know the children in their class room, find their passions, their interests and their dreams and turn them into learning experiences. Teachers need to meet children where they are and change their pedagogic curriculum into a children led one where children get the chance to ask themselves “What do I want to learn today?”
As soon as learning becomes a force without a meaning (for the child) it will become boring and the passion to learn will die. That’s it!
Without recess, the brain does not get the break it needs to process all the information. And what will happen to today’s children of America? Their health will probably be even worse than their parents’. Children have a natural need to move around, play and run. To strengthen their bodies for a healthy future. Obesity will increase like they mentioned on the news, but what about osteoporosis? Oh, I can’t even begin to think about it. How can these “educated” people make such poor decisions?
I never liked the public school system as it was and it’s sad to see it getting worse.
Add comment March 8, 2009
compassionatekids
the Puddle Walk!
I just want to share a fun homeschooling idea I did with my kids one afternoon. For me, this is what homeschooling is all about, taking what each day has to offer and make the best out of it. My children are too young to officially start homeschooling, but I of course raise them the same way now as a will continue to do once they are school age.
One ordinary warm and rainy day I was on my way to the playground with my children when I decided it was going to be too wet and slippery for them to play there (the rain had started to pick up).
Dressed up for playing in the rain, we changed our plans and decided to go for a walk and look for puddles. We called it the Puddle Walk.
With three kids, I constantly have to divide the attention and my time between them as fairly as possible. The oldest child walks next to me and the younger two are strapped into our double stroller. We did not have to walk too far until the ones in the stroller were sound asleep. This gave me the opportunity to give all my time and attention to my oldest son.
It was a wonderful and very rare opportunity so we made the best out of our walk. As we walked and looked for puddles to jump in we found lots of interesting things we now finally had time to stop and look at. No impatient kids screaming in the stroller. My son could stop and pick as many sticks as he liked. He has so many questions and today I had time to listen and answer to all of them. I was also able to just be next to him and listen to his thoughts and ideas. One example is when we found some leaves and he placed the leaves in a water puddle. Normally, I would stand further away with my other kids and just watch him. But now I learned his ideas behind his actions. He was wondering if leaves could float in the puddles and placed them in there to find out!
Fortunately I had brought our camera and was able to take some pictures. I really think repetition is one of the most important parts of learning. So to make sure we don’t waste and forget all that we learned that day, taking pictures is a great, fun and very helpful way of remembering. There are lots of things you can do with the photos later.
Depending on how good your photos are and how many you took you could paste them on poster boards and put up temporarily on your wall, you could pick out a few special ones and frame them, or as I did with mine make a book with them. Since we talked about so many things during our walk, I wanted to write them down. Our whole walk had been a perfect story so why not make it into a book?
We spent most of our time on a bridge, throwing leaves, sticks and rocks into the stream beneath us. We observed what happened with the different items and talked about why the rocks made a splash and sank to the bottom while the leaves floated away so quickly.
Now our book has become a bedtime favorite all my children enjoy, especially the oldest one.
A little from our book:
Add comment November 13, 2008
compassionatekids
Fun and Easy Halloween Craft!
I just want to share some crafts I have been doing with my kids recently. I like decorating with home made crafts for any occasion. There is so much you can do for Halloween and there are lots of great and fun creative ideas everywhere.
These two are using recycled materials and will not end up on land fills when Halloween is over.
NAPKIN RINGS
These are a two-day project. First, your children (or child) can paint empty paper towel rolls. I used a non-toxic washable paint and added some glue to get a glossier shine. Since the glue is white it will make your paint color look faded but as the paint and glue dries, the color will come back (since glue dries clear).
My children chose a black color which is a great pick for Halloween!
When the rolls are completely dry, cut them into napkin rings. Let your children/child decorate them with fun Halloween items. We used a glitter glue and attached scary spiders, leaves with fall colors and some stickers.
There are lots of different ways you can decorate your napkin rings!
PUMPKIN WALL DECORATION
This is such a fun painting project (also a two-day project). I used the bottom side of disposable “paper plates.” But the ones I used were not made of paper. They are made from the sugar cane and are therefore biodegradable. The bottom of these plates have a texture that reminds me of a real canvas. It makes painting very fun. Also, since the bottom is sticking out, it makes it ideal for a realistic looking pumpkin.
Instead of letting them paint with orange color, I let them mix yellow with red. (I put the yellow and red paint separately on their palette so that they can experience the mixing of colors). What they got was a nice and soft pumpkin-like color. I have to say I like to let my kids paint on different surfaces than just flat paper. They seem to enjoy the challenge to color all the different angles and they stay so focused and concentrated.
Since we did not blend the colors together there are parts that are more yellow and some parts are more to the red. But I think it adds dimension and life...
Anyway, when the plate has dried you can cut out holes if you wish to make it into a jack-o-lantern. If you choose to do so, you need to cut a yellow paper into a circle and tape/glue it to the other side of the plate. Lastly (which I have not done yet on the picture) you can cut out a stem and some leaves and tape/glue to the top. These could also be hung on your front door.
These home made jack-o-lanterns will help everyone in your home get into the Halloween-spirit.
Oh, one more quick idea that my son came up with is a ghost hand-puppet. Just take a white sock (great to use those socks with a missing pair) and draw eyes and a mouth with a black marker. Done! So easy and I did not even think about it myself…
Have fun and happy halloween!
Add comment October 21, 2008
compassionatekids
It’s not easy being little
As a person, I wish our world was much more compassionate towards all life around us. As a mother, I of course teach compassion to my children. Never, did I think there would be a time when it would be difficult. But I am struggling at times with my 3 1/2 year old son. For some reason, he is not very gentle with little insects.
Maybe you think insects are not a big deal. But for me, I don’t like to see this side in my son; That he wants to step on, or hurt someone so little. Why? Why would he want that?
I never let him, although it has happened when I’m not around. I always talk with him about how important it is to be extra nice when you are big, and how it is not easy to be little. There are times when I think he gets it.
How do other parents go about to teach their children to be gentle with all lives around us?
I always try to make my son connect with something familiar for himself, such as talking about families or friends. When he sees an ant, I tell him that the ant is looking for his mommy or his friend.
Last weekend, we went camping. Before we went to bed I took my son to the bathroom to shower and brush his teeth. We found two bugs in the bathroom and to my surprise he looked at them and wished them a good night before we walked back to our campsite.
It made me hopeful and motivated to keep teaching him my values. It is so nice to hear my son speak with such a sweet heart.
Add comment September 5, 2008
compassionatekids
Hopscotch Rocks!
Here is a fun and simple activity (craft?) for kids to make their hopscotch more exciting. My children love to collect sticks and rocks from our walks to and from the play ground. One day I got the idea to let them paint rocks. Children love to paint and I always look for different materials and surfaces for children to explore. It’s nice to paint something besides flat surfaces like paper. My son recently discovered the game of hopscotch so I thought it was a good idea to paint their rocks for their hopscotch. That way, they get their own special rock and will not confuse it with somebody else’s.
The only issue is that non toxic washable paint does not keep its color too well on the rock. If you have young children who might taste the paint I would use the washable paint anyway, but I used acrylic paint. I took all their clothes of and spread newspapers over the table and covered the floor underneath.
My kids had a lot of fun and learned how you can use objects straight from nature just as well in activities!
Add comment August 23, 2008
compassionatekids
Creamy Pasta Sauce
This is a tasty, easy and quick -and nutritious- semi homemade pasta sauce recipe that is great for kids. I made this sauce as an “experiment” to give my children more nutrition in their store bought pasta sauce. It’s so easy and simple. Your sauce will be done by the time your pasta has finished cooking!
Add comment August 13, 2008
compassionatekids
Green Living
Since I was a child, at least 17 years ago, I have heard about how to save our environment on TV. Today, when Global Warming has almost become a trend, the “how to’s” have not changed much. When for instance the news are giving advice on green living it is usually the same old advice:
- Take shorter showers
- Turn lights and other electronics off when not used
- Drive less
- Eat locally grown foods
- Bring your own grocery bags when grocery shopping (or any shopping)
- Waste less
- Recycle
These are all great advice. But don’t people already do these things? It is time to go a little further and (for some) hear some new advice.
Add comment August 8, 2008
compassionatekids
Bob the Builder for adults!
My sons love Bob the Builder. Before I had kids, I did not know anything about Bob the Builder other than what the name reveals. Now, I know almost every episode. If you are not familiar with Bob the Builder, it can easily be described in a few sentences.
Bob and Wendy work together and fix anything in Bobsville. They have a team of living machines who all have names, genders and personalities. It is as if the machines are children and Bob and Wendy are adults. They teach the machines right from wrong.
Of course my kids love to watch Bob the Builder for the construction work and to see the diggers and all the machines. But Bob the Builder also comes with an important message to our children. It teaches our children a better way to live, how to take care of our planet. BTB talks about pretty much everything that I want my children to learn about the environment:
- First of all, they always mention the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
- They care about the trees, and for example in one episode where they were building a new road, they built the road around the tree instead of cutting it down.
- Children learn how to waist less. When one old tree needed to be cut down, they found some use for every single part of the tree. Farmer Pickle uses everything from the sunflowers he grows: oil, seeds and even as a dye.
- The people in Sunflower Valley use different energy sources like solar power and wind power.
- Everything is organic
- They care about the animals in the forest and help them when they need it: Bob puts out water for them in the hot summer, they build safe crossings for different animals over streets.
Bob the Builder is a cartoon, but they make “green living” look so easy. Maybe Bob the Builder should be made for adults as well!
Add comment July 30, 2008
compassionatekids
Hope
After watching ABC’s 20/20 last Friday, I am more hopeful about the elephant’s future. I hope that maybe after seeing how elephants are abused and taken away from where they belong (with their families in the wild), and “trained” with torturous methods to be forced to make the most unnatural acts like walking on their front legs, riding a bicycle etc. that America will stop seeing elephants as some object that is here to entertain us. I hope people will stop being amused by circuses. To me, circuses disgust me. It seems so humiliating for the animals and I can’t believe that it is legal to keep wild, social and intelligent animals like the elephants in captivity.
I hope that America saw how much the elephants suffer and how much they deserve a better life. I hope parents will stop bringing their children to circuses and zoos to entertain their children. The only reason elephants are being murdered or sold to circuses and zoos is for the money.
1 comment July 27, 2008
compassionatekids
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