Archive for April, 2010
When is a speech, not a speech?
When it is a magic act!
Preparing a child to speak in front of an audience can be difficult, especially if the child is shy. Hiding a speech into a different type of performance can be helpful.
A study about magic can include information about Houdini, various science experiments as well as a few magic tricks with cards or coins. After the lessons you can have your child perform a magic act for a small audience of family or friends. Their interaction with the audience, their presentation of the magic tricks and the memorization of each trick are all the same tools they would need to do a speech. By making it a less formal and fun experience the child will be less afraid. When the performance has been done once, any further performances will be even easier, and soon, even a speech won’t seem that scary!
Mixing fun with education is a great way to increase learning!
What is a unit study?
A unit study is a set of lessons, worksheets and more on a specific topic of interest.
Each topic provides comprehensive, cross0curricular activities to inspire and educate a child in science, social studies, language arts, math, fine arts and more.
They can encompass various learning levels making it useful to teach more than one child at different learning levels. It can work well with different learning styles because it offers a variety of lessons that focus on each learning style – an art lesson for the visual learner, a field trip or science experiment for the kinesthetic learner and a poetry or rhyme section for the audio learner for example. Since each lesson is based on the same topic it can give options on how to study the topic that best suits each child.
Unit studies can be downloadable which saves money, time and the environment since you only print the pages you need. They can provide fun and learning for your child and encompass puzzle sheets to “reward” children for finishing a more challenging exercise.
Homeschooling can get costly when you are buying all the books and materials needed for the lessons. But when it comes to math manipulatives, all you have to do is look around your house!
Manipulatives are defined as “any of various objects designed to be moved or arranged by hand as a means of developing motor skills or understanding abstractions, especially in mathematics.” Using manipulatives in math can help explain tough concepts. Also, manipulatives are a great teaching tool to use for kinesthetic (hands-on) learners. Geometry manipulatives are easy to find around the house, just look for specific shapes – tin can (cylinder), sugar cube, book (rectangle) and the like. Counting manipulatives are also easy to find as you can use anything that you have a bunch of – marshmallows, paperclips, toilet rolls and more. Sorting and graphing manipulatives can be anything that differs in colour or shape – different coloured paper clips, beads or buttons or even cereal.
Before you spend the money on fancy math manipulatives, look around the house and see what there is you can use for free!
There are no rules, that is the beauty of homeschooling. Working one-on-one with your child will allow you to determine the best way for them to learn, and then you can teach it appropriately.
If your child does not like to read, offer stories in comic book form, you can get classics, Shakespeare, even the history of the world in this form. Comics break up the words with pictures making reading easier for reluctant readers.
If your child likes hockey bring that into your lesson plan. A unit study on a specific subject that the child likes not only covers the curriculum but also inspires them to learn because they are learning about something they are interested in.
If your child is an auditory learner, work in some audio books, computer games and music to the lessons so that they have the best chance to learn. Likewise, visual learners and kinesthetic learners can be taught to their learning style.
If your child is struggling with a concept, or is not liking a particular subject, tweak it so that the lessons will be more interesting, or easier for them to understand.
With homeschoooling you can take the time to determine how best to teach lessons to your child. You can cater to their interests, their likes and their dislikes. You can make education fun and important to them – that should be the only rule!