12 Ways to Encourage Learning and 5 Rules of Engagement

Here are some good things I copied off of the site I linked to in the previous post.  Twelve ways to encourage children to learn:

1. Provide a safe and loving atmosphere for learning. More support, less pressure.

2. Create magic and anticipation. Provide inspiring materials.

3. Expose children to inspiring music, great art, good books, etc.

4. Read as a family on a regular, consistent basis. This has great benefits .

5. Inspire curiosity and then leave them to the wonder of experimentation and self discovery.

6. Leave plenty of time for thinking, playing and being with family. Avoid too many lessons, clubs and classes.

7. Remember that play is the work of children.

8. Be patient with the learning process.

9. Learn to recognize and respond to Sparks.

10. Learn and live the Five Rules of Engagement.

11. Enjoy learning yourself.

12. Share what you are learning with our children.

Here are her Five Rules of Engagement to help keep the children excited about learning.

Enjoy!  I'm excited to start applying these things along with the "spark station."

Thoughts Rolling Round and Round

 (Warning: this post is just me sorting out thoughts and is pointless for anyone else to read ;))
I've been pondering....my kids are young.  There are many homeschool methods that don't do any structured learning until age eight.  In the mean time, the children learn on their own, by living and exploring.  

I think I didn't initially go for this idea because the condition on which I get to homeschool our children (my husband says) is that they are not "dumb" as compared with other children their age.  Also, I did find a Christian curriculum that I really like, which I have talked about several times.

Well, after hearing of TJED twice in the same day last week (I  had also heard of it before of course) and learning that they don't do much schooling until age 8, I started pondering.  Whenever something comes up several times in a short period, I figure the Lord could be trying to tell me something, so generally I will look into that thing.  Also, I read an article this last week about exploratory learning through projects.

My brain is going round and round with ideas of loosening up our curriculum and focusing on the learning games, practicing reading, and writing just through letters and stuff. OR I could just do the parts of the curriculum the children enjoy, and the scriptural things, plus more exploratory learning time and materials.  Some of the blogs I've looked at just add math to an otherwise very loose and exploratory learning time.

I'm all over the place.  Here's what I want.  I WANT my children to love learning.  I WANT them to be able to learn creatively, and especially at their young ages I don't want to stifle their ability to do so by learning in such a structured way all the time.  They do enjoy learning things when it's in their own way.  I think it could be a cool and fun process to just let them teach themselves with experiences and materials that I help provide.

For now, I am going to create a "spark station" or something like it.  I like the idea of them only having access to it at certain times so that they are more excited about learning time.  Not sure how I'll pull that off yet though.  I am going to make sure that I am available for any self motivated learning ideas the children have, i.e. going on a walk and making a story with pictures, playing store, writing a letter to a relative, etc.  Also, we will continue, no matter what, to have a daily set aside learning time.

Outside of those things, I have a split personality because there ARE a lot of things I love about our curriculum.  It will be interesting to see what these thoughts all turn into.  

I am looking at putting "Superman" into a 1 day a week charter school for fun group electives next year or the year after.  Largely because he has wanted to play violin since he was 3 and they have a group violin class.  Also, they have a music/drama class that I think he would LOVE and a lego robotics class.  Maybe I'll try to go check that out in person sometime very soon to help me decide if I should wait until he's older.