How do I build a new culture of teaching and learning for my kids?

I came across this great talk from Dr. Tae, Building A New Culture of Teaching and Learning, on the excellent Presentation Zen. Take a look/listen:


Dr. Tae — Building A New Culture Of Teaching And Learning from Dr. Tae on Vimeo.

I encountered similar concepts on education in Drive, by Dan Pink. Read the section near the end about turning students into teachers. Fascinating stuff. How do I design this for my kids? I'll be doing some thinking about it, but if you have any experiences to share, please do so below.

Start of a new year

Since my husband started this great blog for me last year I thought maybe I'd start using it. I'll try to keep up to date on what we are learning. I am not a very structured, organized person. One of my big weaknesses in discipline. Knowing the importance of being disciplined I am working on it and praying about it a lot. So....The schedule is posted on the wall. It looks great on paper. But whether or not we follow it is a whole other story.

This year, for my 3rd grader, I am using teaching textbooks for math, Learning LA through Literature for reading, spelling, grammar and cursive.

For my 1st grader I am using Bob Jones Math and the same for LA (LLATL).

For both I am using Harcourt social studies and some books from Christian Liberty Press for History. We will also be adding Rosetta stone for Spanish.

We are going to try something new this year. We are having the girls tell us a thing or two they'd like to learn and then letting them not only set their own goals, but also make their own report card when through. I know they are young but it gives them some say in what we learn and a little more indepence.

Our first week was far from perfect. We only got through about half of that schedule that is on the wall, my two youngest got sick and by Thursday you could tell even the little we were doing was making their brains tired (and MINE!!). But even with all that...they STILL LEARNED. Maybe even as much as their friends IN school.

I am hopeful to find a nice balance between structure and spontaneity this year. As I look at the family calender and see it's our first full week of EVERYTHING...all activities have started...I lay it all at the feet of CHRIST. I pray for discipline, wisdom, patience, creativity, discipline (yes I know I said that one twice) and balance.

Proverbs 16:9 "In his heart a man plans his course, but GOD determines his steps." Lord, guide me this week. I'll plan but take us where you want us to go. Amen

Starting Spanish at a young age

Everything we've read about teaching foreign languages is that the younger you start, the better they do. So we're teaching Spanish to our kindergartener and second grader.

There are a number of things we're using, the primary tool being Rosetta Stone. We also picked up Mia's Language Adventure: The Kidnap Caper from the local library. The kids love it.

We're also going to have them start using the Google Translate. It's a really cool service I recently came across that translates as you type. Their first task will be to write a letter to Santa Claus translated into Spanish. Won't that be fun?

Here are a couple of other things they'll do:

• A nouns puzzle
• A crossword of days, months and seasons
• A cycle race
• Some printables from SpanishTown
• L0t's more

Anyone else have some fun, free stuff for young kids to learn Spanish? Leave a comment below.

Easter Kids Activities

The kids have some friends coming over today and we need something to keep them busy. How about Easter printables, crossword puzzles and the like? Here are the ones I printed out for them:

• Easter Printables from About.com: Homeschooling
• Easter egg Dot-to-dot from Printactivities.com
• Easter word searches from DLTK

That ought to keep them from hurting each other for a few minutes!

Buzz Buzz Buzz...

My kids wanted to rent the Bee Movie, so I picked it up from the library today. While we were there, we also checked out four books on bees so that the girls could learn about bees while the movie has their interest. I also came across some interesting videos on YouTube, like this one from PBS:



It adds broad visual context to the topics covered in the books. Another video covers their "waggle dance" in more detail:



We'll also have our kids fill in the colors of a Honey Bee. Happy buzzing!

Education is a family affair

We have three little girls and every day we're trying to help them learn about life, faith, family, friends and themselves. Today, more and more of that education is taking place online. There are so many good sources of information online and this is the place where we can gather them in one place.

It's not always easy. Although they love learning, it's also easy to sit in front of the TV and be entertained. Frequently, we find ourselves asking: Are We Learning Yet? I'm not sure...but we're trying.