Hands on Learning; How Everyone is Unique.
Everybody is unique. That's why one way of learning doesn't suit all. My daughters are like chalk and cheese when it comes to learning. My eldest can learn in almost any environment, but she learns fastest if she's enjoying it and not bored. She likes a challenge, as long as it's not too unattainable. I could usually set her going on a project and she'd get on with it herself, just coming to me when she had questions.
My youngest is more of a hands on and visual learner. If there are gaps in her education, she struggles to fill them in herself. Even while she was still in school I'd be taking her a few steps back at home to fill in the gaps that had been missed so she could understand what was being asked of her in her homework and class. She works best if she can apply things to real world concepts, rather than just theorising. She also needs to take things step by step, much like myself.
Photo credit @izzydawn
When I first started homeschooling my daughters there were times when I'd find myself frustrated that Izzy wasn't grasping a concept when I knew she had the capacity to. Some days I would go through lots of different methods to try and explain things to her, to no avail. Often I'd find she didn't grasp a concept, because she hadn't grasped the concept previous to it. So I'd back pedal until we reached a point we could build upon.
For maths I turned to using Lego and marbles to explain concepts like units, tens and hundreds. This worked for decimals too as tenths and hundredths. Having things in a more physical setting helped her to make sense of these concepts and once she'd made sense of them she was able to fly through the maths work and began to enjoy it.
Neither of my daughters is overly fond of English as a subject, but my eldest did enjoy memorising spelling words. She likes black and white concepts where you're either right or wrong and it's not open to interpretation. I guess it's why maths is more her forte! Izzy finds spelling a bit harder, so we find other methods to help memorise the less straight forward spellings.
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Photo credit @izzydawn
Most words are written as they sound, so as long as you know the letter sounds you can guess at how they will be written. Some are a bit odd in their spelling though; take Wednesday. If you spell it how it's spoken you might write Wensday. So when we're writing it down we pronounce it a little differently in order to spell it correctly: Wed-nes-day; with a capital letter at the start, of course, because it is the day's name and names have capitals.
Learning has become a journey of exploration for us now and we've come to enjoy it more. If I find we're coming to a point where we're learning is becoming a chore I stop and take stock. The questions I ask myself are “can we make this more fun and interesting?” if not then “how important is it that we learn this?” Sometimes there is something you just need to know about, but it's never going to be fun to do, so we just have to get through it. However, there have been times where it just wasn't worth the hassle and we've dropped it to move onto more productive things.
What I've learnt from this is that you should never assume you're stupid, just because everyone else seems understand things better than you. The chances are you are just as capable, you just haven't discovered your own learning style yet. Have patience with yourself and with others around you.
How long have you been homeschooling for? We just started at the start of this year (were previously at school). I’m still finding my feet but feeling guilty that I’m still finding my feet with it all...how long did it take you to settle into a rhythm that worked for you, and do you follow set curriculums? 😊🌿
Just over 7 years. I did a post on why we started a while ago:
https://steemit.com/homeschooling/@minismallholding/why-we-homeschool
They say it can take about a year to get into your own rhythm with homeschooling. I think we pretty much spent most of it trying different things out. I didn't do a curriculum. I guess we've been eclectic in our approach, because they get bored when we stay with one approach too long. I think you evolve as they age as well.
My eldest has written a couple of posts about homeschooling from her point of view That you might find interesting:
https://steemit.com/homeschooling/@svitlaangel/homeschooling-from-a-student-s-point-of-view
https://steemit.com/homeschooling/@svitlaangel/homeschooling-from-a-student-s-point-of-view-part-2
She's 17 now.
I'm not sure if I can ever truly say I found my feet! They used to do Naplans so I could see if they were on track and because my eldest liked doing them. I think my youngest was a bit behind in one area once, so we worked on that. I stopped doing them after the second one though and just did those excel naplan style test books. That was more for my peace of mind though.
Thankyou so much I’ll look up those links tomorrow! I feel a bit more hopeful now! I felt like I should have had it all together by now but now I feel encouraged, thankyou.
Thanks for sharing this post.
You're welcome. 😊
Thank you
When I was in elementary school, we had what was called the cluster system. You were taught subjects at your learning level. You could be in first grade in a third grade math class or fifth grade in the second grade english class. It seemed to me that students tried harder to succeed to the next level. When I moved to Southern California it was like learning culture shock for me. It was not cool to be smart as a matter of fact, you would be picked on and called names. It was difficult on me because I was at least two grades ahead in my learning then the rest of the 5th graders.
I can only imagine how difficult it must have been going from traditional learning to the common core brainwashing to confuse system.
Excellent on your part to home school your children and having the ability to adapt to both of their needs. I want to congratulate you on taking on what most parents shy away from!
Thank you.
What is "normal" seems to be entirely dependant on what you're surrounded by. It's interesting that your Southern California school experience seems to be what's portrayed in the movies as the "normal" for schools. My own schooling experience would probably be classed as different, which is probably why I was open to the idea of homeschooling.
A lot of words come from other languages, so the 'rules' for spelling sometimes don't apply. "I before E, except after C", doesn't work for words like 'weird' or 'their', etc.
A good positive post.
Yes, the English language has evolved from all the invading countries over the years. It's origins are Germanic, but it also incorporates the romances languages like Latin, Spanish and French.
Sorry, is my history geek showing? Lol!
Hi @minismallholding
Next Adelaide Steemit meetup is this Thursday 31st of May 2018!
6pm onwards @ The Jade 142-160 Flinders Street.
Further details about the meetup can be found here
Hope to see you there, have a great day :) Stef aka @o07
We plan on being there. 👍
That's great look forward to seeing you all :)