As any homeschooling parent
with multiple children knows...
Each child is different!
Each child learns differently!
Oh if that isn't the truth in this house!
I am blessed and my children are all
extremely bright!
I am not just saying that because they are mine,
I am not putting on my rose colored glasses.
They are truly bright children!
But they are crazy different!!
My oldest, I swear, could teach himself
ANYTHING
from a book!
My second child,
needs a different approach.
I can't just plop a book in front of him
and expect him to get it.
Sometimes,
no matter how I explain a concept,
no matter how many ways I show him on paper,
no matter how I try to explain in with words...
he just flat out won't remember the next day,
sometimes not even on the next page!
I try to find ways to "show" him,
things for him to touch,
things for him to "play" with.
He is definitely my
"hands on" learner.
He loves doing things with his hands,
always has.
I also don't want 5000 manipulatives
all over my house/schoolroom
because I just can't keep up with them.
Period!
Money has been a sticking point for this child.
We discuss it,
we draw pictures,
we look at the pictures in the book,
I have let him look at some real money.
Then I stumbled upon
some fake money at Target
on the dollar aisle.
(but it wasn't $1, it was $3)
I debated getting it...
do I really need it?
are we really going to use it?
can we do without it?
no
maybe
yes
But I bought it anyways,
and threw it in a drawer in the schoolroom.
Then,
one day...
I needed it!
We were going through another page in his
math workbook,
a money recognition question came up.
Coins!
And a roadblock came with it!
Didn't we just discuss this yesterday?
Didn't you seem to get it yesterday?
What in the world child?
So I said "hang on!"
We put closed the book and put it to the side.
I rummaged through my school drawers
and found the money!
Then I pulled out the silicon cupcake cups,
that I received years ago as a gift,
but have only been used to make cupcakes
ONCE!
Since then,
they have been used as a part of
many homemade preschool activities!
They make GREAT sorting "bins".
So I dumped the coins out on his table in front of him,
then dropped a stack of the cupcake holders.
His first objective was to sort the coins!
Easy enough!
While he was sorting,
I grabbed a note card and wrote out
the names of all of the coins he was sorting
and their values.
He had one set of labels that had the names on one side.
Then he had another set that had the values.
I put one way to write it on one side ($0.10)
and the other way on the the opposite side (10¢)
So after he had sorted them,
he had to match
the name
AND
the value
to each set!
That was the hard part!!
Some he knew and could get easy...
Others were a bit of a struggle.
But eventually he got them all right.
Then just because,
I had him count all of it!
Eeek!
He had to write down the name of each coin,
then both ways to write its value,
then count it and write down the total
both ways!
Whoa!
We did this a couple more times,
and you know what.
It stuck!
I haven't quizzed him on it lately
(and we did this in October)
but it definitely helped.
Sounds like an activity for this week!
Happy Homeschooling!
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