Tag Archives: Education

Oh Teachable Moment, Or, Why I Love The Economist

As a child, I would ask my Dad what words meant, and he would always say, “Look it up in the dictionary.” “Just tell me!” I would wail, because I knew he could tell me the definition off the top of his head. After all, he had gone to college, to law school, and then to seminary. Reading was his hobby. His vocabulary was (and is) massive. But he would never tell me; he always made me look it up.

Of course, as I got older I realized that my dad wasn’t being mean, he was trying to teach me an important skill. I was thrilled recently to demonstrate that skill to my own children. I was reading an article in The Economist magazine about the war between Russia and Georgia, when I encountered a word that I was sure I had never seen before: irredentist.

Hey, an opportunity to be one of those good parents, the kind who find “teachable moments.” Rather than Google it (Lord knows my kids have already seen me Google a million different things) I pulled out the American Heritage Dictionary. I brought it to the breakfast table, and narrated my activity to my children.

“Look, kids! I read a word in this magazine that I don’t know. So now I’m looking it up in the dictionary. I, ir, irr, irredentist. Here it is! ‘One who advocates the recovery of lands of which his nation has been deprived of or of territory culturally or historically related to his nation but now subject to a foreign government.’ Wow. Who knew there was a word that meant that? I guess the phrase ‘irredentist Russia’ is kind of redundant, huh? Ha, ha!”

At this point I look up from the dictionary and realize that my kids are not watching me, listening to me, or learning important life skills. Instead, they are arguing about the placement of the cereal box so they can both look at it. There is a long discussion about distance and angle. They are not learning about dictionary skills, but they are learning the subtle arts of compromise, bribery, and emotional manipulation.

Oh, well. I’ll keep renewing that Economist subscription. I’m sure there will be more words that I don’t know, and more teachable moments.

by STL Mom

Photo graciously provided by *RICCIO “il colore del ricordo inganna”, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Homeschooling Away From Home

My daughter began attending pre-school at a local church this month and it’s working out really well. I have to admit that I was worried that it would interrupt school with my older son, because her class is in the morning when we are usually doing school work. Quite the opposite has happened.

I called the pre-school and asked if we could use one of the rooms in the church to homeschool while Cindy-Lu was in class. They were more than happy to help out and now I just drop Cindy-Lu off at her class and then my son and I head to the church library and get our work done.

I’m amazed by how much work we are able to accomplish in those two and a half hours. There is nothing around to distract us, nobody knocking on the door, no ringing telephones, and no toys calling my son’s name. When we are at the church, my son knows that it is school time and he works without complaint. Before we leave for the church in the morning I have to go through each book we will need and put them in my bag and gather any other supplies we’ll need while out. The day goes much more smoothly because of that extra bit of organization.

When we do school at home, I tend to be less organized. We also tend to do our work in a different place each day. Sometimes we use the dining room table, sometimes the coffe table, and sometimes we do school right on the floor in our office. I don’t take the time to go through the day’s schedule and be sure that we have all the right books, pens, pencils or rulers that we might need for the day.

I need to be a bit more disciplined and organized when we’re doing school at home, but for now, I’m just pleased with how well things go while we’re away from home.

Have you tried homeschooling away from home? How does it work for you?

by Karly Campbell

Photo graciously provided by Mr. Peebles, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Starting Back To School, Learning to Study

This week is the start of school, and I’m approaching it, as always, full of hopes and dreams about organization and fewer battles over homework. I know the inevitable tension will come into play soon enough, but I am enjoying these few moments of unbridled optimism, and trying to find ways to make it last.

For my newly-minted teenager entering eighth grade, this year has to be about study skills. Study skills are things grown-ups talk about all the time, but we are never all that specific with kids what they mean. And since eighth grade is the last year when you get a bit of a pass before high school and the run towards college, getting a set of effective study methods mastered is going to be key.

What do I mean by study skills?

Each one of us has a slightly different learning style. Some people are auditory learners; others are visual; others are somewhere in between. But knowing how you learn best is important in deciding which tool from the Study Skills toolbox to apply.

1. Extending your memory- In order to remember the loads of information school expects you to have readily on hand, re-reading a chapter in a book is rarely the best or only study method to employ. The bottom line is we remember information more readily when we use it and transform it in different ways. This means you should try:

a. Making flash cards and drilling the information- This works best for short pieces of information, like spelling words, dates, state capitals, and the like. Part of the learning process is also in the making of the flash cards- writing the information, looking up definitions, etc. This is part of the process of using the information and transforming it- so if you think you are helping your child by making the flash acrds for them, you are wrong.

b.Outlining- this is something that was really useful in law school, and I wish I knew about it much earlier in school. Basically, what you do is take all the information you need to know and re-write it, transforming it into a heirarchy of information. So for a semester’s worth of material on property law, I would have headings based on certain principals like Who owns the land? followed by principals and cases underneath that illustrate those points. For my middle school son, Outlining works best for topics like science and history, when you have a lot of facts you have to start to inter-relate and find larger themes.

c. Time lines- This is great for history in particular, because it helps sort out the sequence of dates and helps you identify patterns in what happened when, why, and why we should care. Again, by using the information you’ve read and transforming it into a different form makes it more likely to stick.

2. Some subjects do require Drill and Kill. For some classes, often math, or spelling, requires a more simple form of studying or practice I refer to as drill and kill. The only way to get better, is often to see more problems and practice the way to attack them.

a. Practice problems- fortunately, there are tons of websites now that will generate practice sheets of math problems at all levels, making studying and practicing for math classes easier than ever. You can check out my del.icio.us bookmarks; hit the math tag, and you’ll get many sites that will give you more math sheets that you ever want, elementary through high school.

b. Spelling- for spelling, we have a week long process here at home. Day 1- pretest- what words does the child already know? Any one they have problems with they need to write out on the white board twice. Day 2-re-test; look to see if there’s something unusual in the pattern of the strange words; spell them out loud; break them down into chunks and roots, to make the sub-parts of the words easier to remember.

3. The Secret Study Weapon of them All- Context!

The one thing school does a crappy job of is putting knowledge into a bigger context for kids. I remember so well, sitting in class and saying to myself- when am I EVER going to use this stuff when I am a grownup? This question is a good one, but it also provides a wall between a kid and their willingness to get the information they need to engage in the classroom. So whenever I see kids hitting that wall, I try to tell them why learning fractions is important, when you use them as adults, etc. And sometimes the answer is as easy as this:

A recent study in the UK shows that the average person used their math skills 14 times a day, and their literacy skills 23 times a day. It also showed that people who had weak skills in these areas experienced a lot of stress, including trying to find ways of get out of work or pas it on to others to make up for their weaknesses.

This helped a bunch of my tutoring students to see that all this school stuff was used later on, and helped, at least temporaily, to keep them motivated to learn.

So let’s do our kids the biggest favor of all- let’s tell them why school is important, give them the big picture, and make what they learn meaningful. That’s the greatest gift of all.

by Whitney Hoffman

Photo graciously provided by Bukutgirl, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

Bringing Education To Life

We are in week two of our school year and I am so impressed with the curriculum we’ve chosen for Language Arts and History. We used Sonlight last year, and while it was a thorough and enjoyable package, there weren’t many (any) crafts or projects tied in. I’m not a crafty person, so I’m not good at making things up on my own. This year I chose something that included craft suggestions and games to play that reinforce what is being taught.

So far both my son and daughter have made an Indian Diorama. We’ve colored a page in an Indian Tribes colorig book. We’ve gone on an Earthlodge Tour via the web. We’ve been playing grammar games. We’ve played a couple of School House Rock games. We’ve learned a lot by reading books, but we’ve really soaked that information in by having fun with it.

If you have crafty kids (and what kid doesn’t like crafts?) I highly recommend these Easy Make and Learn Projects available through Amazon. I only have the Colonial America project so far, but you can be sure that I’ll be purchasing the others soon. The Pilgrims, The Mayflower, and More would be perfect to use in November when we’re all gearing up for Thanksgiving.

If you are looking for ways to inject a little fun into Language Arts, check out the Grammar Games And Activities workbook by Scholastic. It has all kinds of fun games to play and lots of activities that are just as effective as a worksheet but full of fun! My son is also really enjoying his Funny Fairy Tale Grammarworkbook. It’s grammar, yes, but it is also fun because it’s based on his favorite fairy tales!

Workbooks tend to get a bad rap amongst homechoolers, but if you, like me, aren’t very creative when it comes to making school fun, be sure to check the above mentioned books out. They really make it easy to make school a little more entertaining!

by Karly Campbell

Photo graciously provided by -syko-, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved

The New Girls

Yesterday was my daughter’s first day of school. I asked her if she wanted to go early and play on the playground, and she said, “No!”

For a moment I was surprised, because she loves the playground, and then I understood. She’s new to this school, and she would rather walk in at the last minute than play by herself as the other children excitedly greeted their old friends and classmates.

I tried to offer some reassuring thoughts. “You were the new girl last year, too, and remember what great friends you made?” And then she floored me with this reply, “I’m ALWAYS the new girl!” Because she’s right. My daughter has gone to a new school every year since kindergarten – four schools in four years. No, we’re not in the military. Only this last change was caused by a move. We just had a lot of trouble figuring out what our daughter needed.

First, there was the public school kindergarten. When my daughter started crying every time school was mentioned, and her academic skills seemed to be getting worse instead of better, we switched her to a private Montessori elementary school. It was beautiful and calm, and at first she was happier. But as first grade continued, the situation went downhill again. She wasn’t reading, spelling tests were a nightmare, and she was kept in from recess nearly every day for not completing her classroom work.

At this point we realized that if our daughter was failing in two very different school environments, then perhaps the issue was partly within her, and not just the schools. Against the wishes of her school, we had her tested and discovered that she was really smart, and had severe learning disabilities. The woman who tested our daughter recommended a private school just for kids with learning disabilities, and by chance that school had one opening in the 2nd grade class.

Within days at the new school, our daughter was flourishing. She told anyone who would listen that if they had school on Saturday and Sunday, she would go every day. Finally, all her needs were being met, and we could relax, knowing that we had found the right place for her. Except for one problem – my husband was being laid off from his job, and we knew he was unlikely to find a new job in our city.

We felt that we had to give our daughter at least one year at her wonderful new school, so for six months my husband lived in a studio apartment in another city and flew home on weekends. I toured schools before I even started house-hunting in our new town, trying to find a school that would meet our daughter’s educational needs.

I think I’ve found a good school, and as we walk up on the first day, I try to reassure my daughter that everything will work out. She will get the accommodations she needs, kids will not make fun of her because she doesn’t read well, she will make new friends.

And I hope that I’m right. Because I’m about to become a new mom at school, again. For the fourth time. I have to meet the teachers and staff, and join the PTA, and make new friends, just like my daughter. I can’t tell her it will be easy, because it won’t be, for either of us.

But, ready or not, school is starting. We are the new girls, and we’ll be fine.