In learning at home, we have found that our two children learn in two very different ways. Our daughter learns best in a more traditional way of reading books, and listening as someone is teaching. She loves the busy work of worksheets, and appreciates having a way to measure her success in tests. Our son, on the other hand, is the opposite. He too loves to learn, but only if he doesn’t realize that he is learning. He is very inquisitive, and asks many thoughtful questions, but has a hard time with listening as someone is teaching. Sometimes, he will ask a great question, and as I am trying to explain the answer, he will jump to his next questions. He is a hands-on learner who likes to try things himself, and tries to solve his own problems before asking for help. Our son detests busy work, and we often have a hard time measuring his success in learning through traditional testing.
Although our children are very different in the ways that they learn, they both tend to do most of their learning through creative play. I have sometimes asked myself, “Should our homeschooling look more traditional?” “Should I continue to let them play most of the day?” “Are they getting too old for days spent in make believe?”. The answer I cannot escape in my heart, is a resounding “NO”. I can see that they ARE learning the subjects we are studying. They are learning about events that took place in history, important people who lived before us, and the world they lived in. They are learning about different cultures and ideas, and how the world around us works. They play out different scenarios, and they face some of the very same problems that people have had to solve in the past. Through their play, they have the opportunity to try and solve these problems on their own before learning how those in the past have solved them. I don’t see how any of this could not be beneficial to learning, or how it makes for a day wasted in make believe. I am choosing to embrace this way of learning, for as we study subjects at home, I can easily see if our children are understanding a concept by listening to how they are playing. They often role play and act out the stories that we have recently been learning about. I find that many of my days are full of answering “what if” & “how” questions as the story line in their current game unfolds and changes.
As I create tools of play for my own children to learn from, I’d like to share them with you. My first offering will be later this week. I have a fun tutorial to share with you, but it’s not quite ready yet.
