Circling Through This Life

When teaching and learning are just part of your life like eating and breathing it is easy to incorporate little lessons in creative ways.  We have a running joke in our family that goes something like this “hey wait a minute today isn’t a school day.  STOP. We can’t learn.  STOP this school. “ followed by lots of laughter and more joking and teasing. Today for the 5 Days of Teaching Creatively we’re talking about Toys, Games, and Puzzles .  I don’t want to talk about the games or toys or even puzzles that are designed and intended to be used as part of school.  You know the ones: Alphabet Bingo,  Math Fact Concentration etc.  I want to talk about learning while playing games intended for entertainment.  Okay, some of the intended for entertainment games were purchased at home school conventions but they’re played for fun. My family loves games.  We are very much a board game family. We have certain days of the year that are just GAME DAY a...

I confess that when I think of “school in the kitchen” I have an image of my daughters sitting at the kitchen counter filling out math worksheets or learning how to cook by helping me in the kitchen.  But d oing school in the kitchen doesn’t have to just mean cooking lessons. Today we’re doing talking about School In the Kitchen for the 5 Days of Teaching Creatively Blog Hop.   I confess that I don’t actually use cooking to try to teach math.  I mean it happens.  Cooking is a wonderful real life application when you are working with measurements.  But in my house school in the kitchen usually means science.  I do not claim to be creative at all.  When we do science related school in the kitchen, it’s generally because whatever science program we’re using has suggested an activity that uses kitchen stuff. (You’ll want to watch for my review of Supercharged Math in April.  The e-science program has lots and lots and lots of experiments and so many...

This week, instead of a one day blog cruise, the Schoolhouse Review Crew begins a 5 Day Blog Hop: 5 Days of Teaching Creatively.  Each day the Crew Bloggers will explore a different aspect of Teaching Creatively. Today’s topic is Delight Directed Teaching . “Delight Directed Learning.” is a term that I’ve seen around in home education circles. I don’t know what the official meaning of that phrase is nor do I know what others mean when they use it but I want to share what it means to me and how I use the “delights” of my children to choose curriculum or to teach concepts that I want them to learn. A term that I’ve heard in the past that more accurately describes our homeschool might be “parent-directed; student led” learning.  My husband and I have certain requirements for our homeschool.  One them is literature study.  I want each of my daughters to know how to read literature critically and be able to respond to literature.  How does that look when you apply...