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.

(more…)

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.

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:

I am planning on home schooling all my children. My oldest child is only just over three, so I still have some time to plan the details and work on a curriculum. But I have the basics in my head already. First of all: learning should always be fun! You don’t have to sit down at a desk and study from a book in order to learn.

For all stay at home mothers who watched and helped their children grow and learn in their early years: look at how much children can learn in a non-school environment. And look how much fun they have learning. And see how much children LOVE learning. You don’t have to ask them, it’s hard to keep up with them as it is and give them enough to learn. They just want more and more. Children are born with a curiosity for life and they love learning. Children have that fire burning, that sparkle that is the most important thing to have. They have an interest and want to learn.

(more…)