For those of us who grew up in a conventional school, our schooling, our formal “learning”, took place in a classroom, with periodic field trip outings.

When most people think of homeschooling, they think of schooling taking place at the kitchen table or some formal school room in your house.  Like this:

And obviously, from this picture of Z, our kitchen table is often covered in school related materials, usually K’s math or Little E’s art projects.

But, the kitchen table or  classroom is not the only place “schooling” should takes place. In fact, I urge you to consider it a last resort.

While some studies, like K’s Algebra, suit themselves well to the kitchen table or a classroom, we limit our kids’ education if we restrict their learning to this one little spot of the world.

True education, true learning, happens every day, in every location. It comes from practically being involved in the world, in life.

We learn not just from “school books”, but from real books, from experiences, from labor, from conversations, from being outdoors, from being involved.

We can study books about animal and plant life all we want, but it’s not the same as getting up close and personal with real live animals, insects, and plants.

Our kids can watch videos about survival skills and study pictures of history, but it’s not quite the same as going out and creating their own re-inactments, building their own huts, and foraging for materials in their environment. Finding the right branches and mud, and figuring out just how it should go together.

Nothing tests that knowledge like spending a raining day hanging out in the hut you built yourself.

Life is about presenting ideas, sharing ideas, and having lots of discussions. It’s about being involved in projects, working together with others, and sharing your own skills and perspectives to fill your own unique spot in the world.

I encourage you to seek out life with your kids, to do life with your kids. Let them explore and find out where they fit, where they shine, what they are passionate about, and what they need to figure out to get to where they want to go.

School Books can go just about anywhere. They do not need to be relegated to the kitchen table, they can be taken outside…

or in the car… 

Find a tree to hang out in, a hammock to kick back in, or a simply just lay out on the grass and taken in the world.

You never know what you’ll learn and experience by expanding the world beyond the classroom or the kitchen table.  This world is amazing, there are so many things to see and experience. School should not hamper our children’s education, but expand it.

 

How do you define education?

Have you thought about  what that word “education” means to you, for you, for your children?

Oddly, I find that most of us don’t.

One of the best exercises I think homeschool families can do is to sit down and write out what education means for them, for their school.  What are your goals for your children?

Every school, public or private, has it’s definition of what education is to them, what they are trying to accomplish. As a homeschool, what are you trying to accomplish? What is your “end game”?

Personally, I’m working to help my children be the best they can be within who they are. To equip them with the skills and love of learning to flourish as individuals, to grow and become the person God intends for them to be.

For me it’s not about filling them with up with bits of knowledge, but teaching them to observe and learn, and grow their knowledge and skills as they need to for what they are working to accomplish. To provide them with a solid base to grow on, to build on with their own passions and interests.

I working to equip them with skills more than knowledge. But that’s me, and our school.

I have learned that not all schools look at education the same way. Their goals are not the same. This is true across public schools, across private schools, and definitely across home schools.  That’s why we have choice.

You do not have to accept the “education” that the local private school or the local public school offers. You get to choose what education means for your children, for your school. And it may, and probably will, look different than another homeschool family.  And that’s okay.

Your family, your school, your educational goals. Take an honest look at what you think of as education, and define it for you and your school.

Then write out your goals for your children, your students? And what are your educational goals for them?

Once you know what your end game is, it’s so much easier to stay the path, to measure against what you are trying to accomplish and not what the school down the street is doing. It’s easier to choose resources, make choices, and watch your children flourish when you are measuring against your goals and not someone else’s.

 

Letting kids explore their world and interests is not at all what “society” refers to as “education”, and yet, there’s so much learning that happens when we start saying “yes” to the ideas and activities that our kids dream up.

Just take a look at this video from Sarah Brown, a homeschooling mom of 8 and the creator of Dyslexia Games. Sarah calls it “Fun-schooling”. But at the same time, there’s so much science, language, art, and life happening here, not to mention the relationship building that is so very important.

Take a look…

April and May of 2011 involved a lot of educational diagnostic testing for us. Z and J had reached a frustration level with their respective challenges and group expectations for boys their age (at the time 9 and 11) that caused me to seek additional help.

Earlier in the Fall we had finally sought a formal diagnosis for Z’s dyslexia, and in the spring chose to get a formal diagnosis for his autism (PDD-NOS), so that we could get an occupational therapy referral for him.

In May, as I was wrapping my mind around different ways to help Z and help him learn more efficiently, I ran across a new product that homeschooling mom Sarah Brown and her husband Josh were developing – Dyslexia Games.

As soon as I heard about it, I jumped on board, downloading the free samples they were offering at the time and then later buying the first pack they offered.

Why?

Because these little games that they’ve created looked like really fun ways to incorporate visual discrimination therapy in a very cost effective way.

Sarah’s story of how she developed these games and exercises for her daughters, who have dyslexia and autism diagnoses, struck a chord with me, especially as this was a time where I was heavily reading and searching for therapy solutions that would fit in my  budget.

After taking a look at the worksheets, I chose to incorporate them into our full-schoolwork schedule. And not just for Z, but also for the girls and for J, who tracks adhd inattentive and is diagnosed with a written expression disorder.

Both Kgirl and J were late readers, and though Little E reads well for her age, she still reverse numbers and letters at times. So, I figured, why not?  Couldn’t hurt to have them all do the games too. And it surely didn’t.

So What are Dyslexia Games?

Dyslexia Games is a series of visual art and puzzle exercises designed specifically for  children who tend to think and learn visually. Visual thinkers, especially those with dyslexia, adhd, and high functioning autism (Asperger’s and PDD-NOS), sometimes have trouble anchoring letters, and often reverse, flip, or confuse letters, numbers, and other symbols.

Sarah created these fun little patterns, art, and other puzzles to help train kids like hers to look at pictures and symbols and perceive  where the differences and similarities are.  The activities start off simply and get more complex as you progress through them.

What seem like fun, intriguing little puzzles are actually powerful therapy devices for training how visualize and perceive letters, numbers, and symbols.

Each exercise starts with a picture or a pattern. Then the game is to complete the next picture or pattern exactly like the first. You find what is missing and fill it in

And as the kids progress in skills, they take on more complex drawings like these:

While the name specifies Dyslexia, Series A is actually great for any one with pre- or early readers or for kids who have signs of dyslexia or are struggling with reading. I wish I had them in my arsenal when Kgirl and J were learning to read, especially J.

Series B is designed for kids who are already reading at a 2nd grade level or above but are still struggling with reversals, letter confusion, and spelling errors. The detailed visual discrimination exercises also help with those with messy handwriting – but shhh… don’t tell the kids. I have awful handwriting! they’ll want me to use them too

So How am I using Dyslexia Games?

After sharing about these on a support group for homeschooling children with dyslexia, Lisa asked me:

I am curious how you use it? Do you do one worksheet a day? Do you work
through the workbooks in a certain order? or switch back and forth?

So to answer… like I said, I’ve incorporated these into our Full Schoolwork schedule.  We don’t to them everyday. Though you certainly can.

When we first started using them, we started our day with them. As I was fixing breakfast, I asked the kids to work on one.  In the beginning, I found that Z and J needed to break one page down across a few days to keep it fun instead of “work”.

The directions recommend 20 minutes, I don’t think we ever spend that long on them – maybe 10 to 15 minutes.  Would we progress further with more time or more frequency? Maybe. But I’m very careful especially with Z and J to not overload them and cause blocks to learning. They already have enough to deal with, they don’t need more frustration.

My point is to give them little bits that will help them, not overwhelm them and frustrate them further. So for us, it’s just 10-15 minutes. When they finish a  sheet or what we’ve agreed on, then they are done with it and move on to their other schoolwork.

Now, we are no longer starting our day with these, simply because I’m usually still asleep when Z starts his schoolwork (he likes to get his schoolwork and chores done early so the rest of the day is his to play.) Sometimes we’ll do these on the go, just something to do or pass the time with. Sometimes we fit them in between other subjects.

I tend to go through the workbooks in order, choosing activities that will appeal to the boys particularly. There’s a few exercises that are “girly” (i.e., flowers and butterflies,etc.) that I don’t think they’ll respond well to, so I skip those if I think they won’t miss much by skipping it. But I’ll print those out out for the girls to work on.

My original goal was to just print all of them and put them in 3-prong folders for them, but I’ve yet to get to that yet. But that’s my ideal… to just put together folders for them to work through. But for now, I print them one page at time or a few days of sheets at a time.

You can adapt them to your style and to your current plan, be structured with it or loose and relaxed with it. I know that they have helped train both my boys to look at things a little closer, to recognize similarities and differences in symbols. and they have definitely helped Z, who tends to rotate or flip letters in his head, to anchor the letters in his mind.

Where to Get Dyslexia Games?

If you’d like to give Dyslexia Games a try, be sure to check out their website. They offer both a downloadable pdf set of the two series and printed copies they mail to you.

Also, they sometimes run specials like this one, so watch for those – cuz it’s a really great deal no matter what but with a special… it’s just awesome.

But even at full price, it’s just a tiny fraction of what professional therapy costs (!).  And, it also supports another homeschooling family – and idea I very much like

Recently, for our homeschool group’s Newbie Night, I taught a class on Learning Styles and How Our Children Learn – and recorded it.   If you’d like a copy of the recording (Mp3) and my notes – all for free – just enter your email address in the box below, and I’ll get it to you.

The recording includes my main session but not the Q&A discussion (for privacy reasons). Over all it covers:

- What is Education?

- Should we focus on education or learning?

- What is our Role as Homeschooling Parents?

- Why we care about Learning Styles?

- What other things, besides learning styles, impact how our children learn.

- The various learning style theories, including the VAK model, the Griswold model, the Gregorc model, Myers-Briggs, Multiple Intelligence theory, and Cathy Duffy’s model

- How to adapt your curriculum and teaching style to how your child learns, and

- The four keys to adapting to how your child learns.

In all, The recording is over an hour long (1hr 23 min to be exact). It’s in mp3 format so you can download it to your computer, smart phone, or iPod and listen to it at your convenience.