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.

It’s so simple. Why should you waste time on something you don’t like if you don’t even know what it is for. Don’t tell your child that it is time to learn his ABC’s, just show your child how great reading and writing is.

My almost 4-year-old son reads simple words in two languages. He can spell out short words in one language. I have never told him or asked him to learn anything, not even his ABC’s that parents get so stressed out about. Yet, he is on the same level as other kids his age.

I don’t ignore or neglect my son. I let him see how we use reading and writing in the real world. I don’t withhold anything from him. To take reading as an example, some things we do and have done is to let my son write on the computer. He sees his parents do it. I usually open an empty word document and change it to a large font (so that he can see the cause and affect of typing). Then I read out loud all these strange sounds he has written. He laughs and it’s a fun game for him. But very helpful in the development of understanding how reading works. We also always write on their drawings. After they have made a picture, we write one or two words to describe what it is. Now the older one writes himself, but before (and with his brother) we would hold the crayon/marker together and spell out their “art.” Ladybug, Scary Spider, Orange tree etc. Then I put them on our wall and it makes them so proud. Their writing had a meaning and is not just “practice.”

Other examples are cooking. My kids love to help me cook. For them it’s a treat. So I try to include them in as much as I can. Cooking has so many learning opportunities. Not only about food, but we use math to count how many carrots we peeled, how much something measures, or to follow a recipe (reading again). You can even include science since cooking is all about chemical reactions. My children are so fascinated with how temperatures can change textures.

The biggest treat for my kids is probably when my husband takes out his tool box. It’s fun but it takes very fine motor skills to keep that screw driver in the right place on the screw and at the same time make a turning motion. Or to help measure a wall with the tape measure for hanging a picture. You get the point. Let your children be involved with your real life. Our children got to use our real screw gun to help make our dining room table. I was amazed at how controlled the boys were and how well they helped out. Now they are so proud of themselves and are reminded of their big job every time we eat. Great memories make great learning experiences!

See the school world is so unreal. You are mainly just told what you need to learn and what is important (rather than asked what you find important). That’s why it is so boring and that is why children waste so much time in school not learning for life!

I think for the most part, we (parents, teachers) need to show children how we use our knowledge/education in reality, then children will want to learn automatically. We shoule not tell them what to learn, let them initiate it on their own. Schools are way too controlling. Oh, there is so much to talk about when it comes to learning…

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 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!

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.

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!

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!

Ingredients:

• 1 small to medium size eggplant
• 1 15 oz can chickpeas/garbanzo beans
• 1 jar pasta sauce of your choice
• olive oil
• salt
• your choice of pasta

Directions:

1. Fill up a large pot with water and add salt (optional). Cove with lid and put on stove over high heat.
2. While the pasta water is started, add some olive oil in a large, deep frying pan. Dice your eggplant. It does not have to look pretty. You can cut your eggplant into fairly big sized cubes. When the oil is hot, add all the eggplant. It might look like a lot, but it will cook down in volume. Sprinkle with salt and cover with a lid. The salt will extract moisture from the eggplant and together with the lid keeping the steam inside, it will saute the eggplant nicely without too much olive oil. Take lid off to stir a few times.
3. When your pasta water is boiling, add your pasta and follow cooking instructions.
4. When the eggplant has cooked through and has some brown color, add it to your food processor.
5. Empty the whole can of chickpeas to the food processor as well (with the water). Puree until it’s smooth.
6. Pour the eggplant and chickpea pure to your pan. Add the jar of pasta sauce. Bring the sauce to a simmer.
7. Drain your pasta.
8. Enjoy!

Eggplant goes very well with tomatoes and garlic. It will make your sauce a little creamier and less acidic than regular tomato sauce. The chickpeas add a nutty flavor to the sauce and brings up the protein level. If you want more tomato flavor, use a smaller eggplant.

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.

• Buy organic foods. That way you and your family get less pesticides into your body. You also support organic farmers and may convert conventional farmers to using organic methods. It is a little more expensive short term. But you can never buy the planet back. When birds eat insects full of chemicals from pesticides, their egg shells are too thin and brake. With fewer birds each year the number of insects increases, which forces farmers to use stronger pesticides. We have to turn it around together and use our power as consumers to choose who to support and who we boycott.
• Use environmental friendly cleaning products so we don’t poison our oceans. There are so many products available today in so many stores. Anyone can find them.
• Eat less meat! It is not just local food that helps our planet. It takes 10 lb of grains to produce 1 lb of meat. Not only will you help end lots of animal abuse by cutting down on your meat. You will make our planet a better place to live. Most of the grains grown in United States is grown to feed live stock. The reason so much of the rain forest is being cut down, is for growing soy beans to feed live stock in various countries. As a benefit, your health will probably improve as well with less meat.

If people keep caring for our planet, the demand for “greener” products will go up and manufacturers will be forced to make changes as well:

• Instead of filling cleaning bottles up with water, manufacturers should only sell concentrates. People can easily add the concentrate to the same spray bottle and simply add water themselves. Imagine how many plastic bottles that will save! Most cleaning supplies mainly contains water. It is a HUGE waste of plastic!!!
• The life expectancy and quality of a product should increase. Products are intentionally made to last a short time to increase sales. The consequences are more garbage and bigger landfills, or “trash mountains.”
• End fashion! No more throwing out clothes because you have been told that this color is not “in” anymore. Wear a pair of shoes as long as they last. Trust yourself and your own taste in clothing rather than wearing what other people are telling you what to wear!
• There should be compost trucks! Just like there are garbage trucks and recycling trucks to pick up our wastes once a week, there should also be a truck to pick up our compost. I hate throwing compostable foods in my garbage. I think it’s a great idea for our future!
• There should also be more biodegradable products! I have found compostable pick nick plates, bowls, forks, knives and spoons made from the sugar cane. Imagine if we could have even more products like this. Like baby diapers that degrade with time. And garbage bags for the compost to the compost trucks!

Any more ideas?

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!

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.

If we STOP supporting these evil circuses and zoos, then we will HELP elephants still in Africa and Asia and PREVENT more elephants going through such torture and misery. Teach your children compassion and respect for other species. Teach them that you don’t agree with the treatment of animals in captivity. Teach your children that animals have their own purpose in life than to live for us.

Children have a natural love and care for animals. There is no child that would enjoy a circus if they were told the truth! Let your child make a positive impact for the animals instead. Maybe your child’s class can have a bake sale or organize a fund raiser where the profit will go to any organization that saves elephants (or other animals). Here are some:

• The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee
• Owens Foundation for Wildlife Conservation
• IFAW
• PAWS