Archive for September, 2008

Inspiring a Reluctant Learner

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

by Mimi Rothschild

Maybe you’re one of the blessed ones and all of your children pay perfect attention and are thrilled to participate in all their subjects. But if you’re like most, you have at least one student that makes completing math problems or writing a paragraph like pulling teeth. So what can you do to inspire that reluctant learner? There are lots of simple things you can do. Here are a few to get you started:

  1. Be Passionate. Don’t just read. Use funny voices, or act it out. Don’t simply explain how to do long division, but turn it into a math game. Let your passion for what you are doing, teaching, pass through whatever you are teaching. Students tend to get excited about what their instructor is excited about.
  2. Be Vulnerable. If there are certain things that you also struggled with when you were a student, be honest. Share that with your children. Sometimes it can be inspirational to them just to know that they are not alone. It also helps to see that you overcame your barriers.
  3. Make It Real. Tell real-life stories and give actual scenarios within your lessons whenever possible, to make boring material come alive. Acting out stories and conducting science experiments bring to life the lessons on the page. Children tend to get bored and become less cooperative when they don’t understand something, so putting things into perspective and making it real to them can make the world of difference.
  4. Encourage, encourage, encourage. And when you’re done, encourage some more. There isn’t anyone on this earth that doesn’t feel uplifted and inspired when they’re told they’re doing a great job. Children are no exception. Maybe your stubborn learner struggles with math, but they excel at science. When they get an answer right or do well on their practice work, make a big deal! Remind them frequently how intelligent and talented they are, and you will surely see a difference in their overall attitude.
  5. Change Things Up. Although it’s important to have structure and order to your homeschool day, sometimes just making some minor changes to surprise your students can help get them back on track with learning. Instead of doing English in the morning, start off with the subject you usually reserve for the end of the day. The change can be refreshing for everyone.
  6. Don’t Forget to Pray! I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of this, but just in case….remember to incorporate your desire for cooperation and good attitudes from your students into your devotional (and let them hear it). Suggest that your reluctant learner also ask the Lord for help during the day to stay focused and encouraged. And remind them daily of what the Bible says they are capable of:

    Luke 1:37
    For with God nothing will be impossible.
    Philippians 4:13
    I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Every student is different, and inevitably some will struggle more than others. But if you work at being creative and finding new ways to bring learning alive for them, the difference will surely be evident and remarkable.

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Multi-Age Learning

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

-by Mimi Rothschild

Strategies for Teaching All Your Children Together

Probably most of us have had days when we think it might be better for us as homeschooling parents if we just had a set of twins. Then we could do one lesson for all our kids, instead of hopping back and forth from one to another.

On most days, though, we realize that it’s a blessing to have all the different ages together. Mixing up the ages helps our kids have the natural socialization of the family instead of being segregated into age groups. It gives the younger children the opportunity to look up to the older ones, and it gives the older children the chance to show care and tenderness for the younger ones. It lets children see how far they’ve come in their skills and learning, and look forward to where they’re going.

Can we have all those blessings without exhausting ourselves? We can, with a little planning. Here are some tips for homeschooling when you have a range of ages in the family:

Dovetail the work.

Work with the younger children while the older ones work on their own, and then settle the younger ones with play or a project while you check in with the older ones. It’s a sensible approach, but we have to plan ahead in order to accomplish it. Otherwise, we find ourselves getting one child started while the others wait, then starting the next one, and then the next one – and finding that the first child needs us again before we have the last one settled into work. This is a recipe for feeling frazzled by the end of the day!

As long as we get each child’s first activity of the day organized and set out before the day begins, we will be able to start everyone at once, with only one activity at a time needing us.

Get the older children involved.

Older siblings’ reading skills can benefit from the chance to read to the younger children. A six year old can cement his understanding of counting by explaining it to a five year old. A teenager learns from helping younger siblings plan and produce a play on the subject they’re studying.

Again, it takes planning to make sure the older child’s involvement in the younger ones’ lessons fits into the older child’s lessons, too. It helps to list an objective for each of the lessons. When our seven year old reads a story to the three year old, the three year old is practicing listening and the seven year old is practicing reading aloud. It will be a cherished memory for both of them.

Take time for yourself.

With all the planning and thought this requires, you need to be sure to build time for yourself into the day. The kids’ reading time could be your recreational reading time. Their time with online lessons could be your quiet prayer time. Nap time for the children should be nap time for you, too, and the kids who are too old to nap can spend that time in quiet play.

Once our family was driving to the nearby botanical gardens for a visit to support our lessons on plants. As we drove, we were talking about the history lesson the older children were working on: the Renaissance. In a break in the conversation, our baby spoke up: “Ty-renaissance rex,” he said confidently.

We all laughed. We figured he had put together snippets he’d heard from our study of dinosaurs with the history discussion he was listening to, and made up his own new word.

Over the years, we’ve seen how the younger kids’ enjoyment of family lessons has made it easier for them when they get ready to study, and encouraged the closeness of our whole family. It can be hard, but it’s certainly worth it.

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