Spontaneous Learning

My husband and I have toyed with the possibility of homeschooling our kids in the future for various reasons. Right now, our kids aren't old enough to go to school yet, so we still have some time to think about it and make a decision. But sometimes I wonder if I would even be able to handle homeschooling.

Some days it seems like I get absolutely nothing done, and the kids spend all day watching T.V. (Hopefully, that's not actually true, but some days it seems like it.) 

Well, I have made a new resolve to be more organized and make some specific goals on what to get done during the day. One area that I wanted to start having a goal for each day is to do some kind of learning activity with my boys. 

This morning started off better than most. I got part of my new planned morning routine in before the boys woke up for breakfast and got a couple things on my to-do list done before lunch, but I didn't have any sort of plan for a learning activity for the boys. 

After lunch, I actually remembered to go out and get the mail. (Most times my husband just grabs it on his way in from work, but then sometimes it doesn't get looked at for a few days because it's dinnertime.) 

There was one of those big advertisement mailers. I glanced through it really quick to see if there was anything useful in there and went to throw it away. I was feeling proud of myself for taking care of the mail right away instead of letting it pile up on my counter.

But as my hand was about to drop the mail into the trash, I stopped. My two-year-old was hanging on my leg, and I knew I should go do something with him since he obviously wanted my attention. I glanced at the mailer in my hand and got an idea. 

"Hey!" I said to him. "Do you want to do a project with me?" 

He did, so I ran to grab some scissors and glue. 

Not too long after starting, my three-year-old stopped what he was doing and came over to see what we were doing. He excitedly joined in. 

We searched through the ads for pictures of food that they liked.

This is the only reason I keep our coffee table.
It's the perfect height for the boys to do projects.

 Then they cut them out.

"Take a picture of our scissors, Mommy!"

"I can do it by myself."

And glued them onto a paper.

"And here's the glue!"

To make a fun food collage.

The finished product

I was going to have my three-year-old label his food when he finished, but after he wrote "Food I Lic" at the top and his name, he said he was done. So, I let him off the hook. I don't want to make learning a chore at this age. But I was so proud of him for spelling "Food" right all by himself.

This was such an easy activity to do, and the kids loved it. It allowed them to talk about different kinds of food, including likes and dislikes as well as finding out the names of other foods they weren't familiar with. They also improved their cutting skills and learning how to use a glue stick. And it kept them busy and engaged for at least 30 minutes! 

And there was no planning!

What spontaneous learning activities have you done?

2018 Book #3 - Way to Be

I thought I'd start off the year with an inspirational book. I read Way to Be by Gordon B. Hinckley, a former president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This book was written for the youth of the church (boys and girls ages 12 - 18), however, I think much of the advice can be applicable to others as well.

Pres. Hinckley gives nine "Be's" for things that people should be to have successful, happy lives. For each "Be" he uses quotes, tells anecdotes from his own life, as well as his opinions and ideas on how being these nine traits can help people in their lives.

There is an Introduction, a chapter for each of the Be's where he goes in depth on each one, and then a conclusion. The copy of the book I had also had a foreword by Steve Young, a former BYU football player.

I had a hard time getting through the Introduction, but once I got to the "Be" chapters, the read went quickly. It's a pretty quick read - just over a hundred pages, but it's a smaller book with lots of margin space.

Although it's written by a leader of a church, it didn't feel preachy to me in any way; it felt more like someone who was older and wiser giving someone younger his advice. The man was around 90 years old when he wrote the book so I would think he'd had plenty of experiences to know a little something about life.

All of his advice does go follow the teachings of the LDS Church, but it wasn't written in a way that was like, "Do these things to get to heaven." It was just more like, "Hey, if you want to have a good, full life, here are some things that I have learned that will probably work for you."

As I mentioned earlier, it was written for teenagers, but I felt like many of the things he wrote about were still applicable to me as an adult. If I was much older, more of the specific things he mentions in some of the sections or some of the examples he uses to expound on some of the "Be's" wouldn't really apply, but each of the "Be's" would still be things that I think would be beneficial for anyone to try to be, no matter their age.

I thought this was a great book to start out the year, seeing as it's the time for people to make resolutions on how they are going to be better people. I, for one, found a couple of things that I could work on.

What inspirational books have you read?

2018 Book #2 - Snow Babies

Snow Babies, by Laura Ellen Anderson, is a board book about animals in the snow. It has simple text like "Roly-poly polar bear cubs play," with each set of pages designated for a different animal.

The animals included are polar bears, reindeer, beavers, arctic foxes, arctic hares, huskies, penguins, snow leopards, snowy owls, wolves, harp seals, and pandas.

I really liked how they used the full names of the animals, such as harp seals instead of just seals. The baby animal names are also used for each animal. I think this is a great book for teaching kids about some different baby animal names in addition to some of the more common ones out there.

The verbs paired with each type of animal is something that animal would typically do in the wild and could lend themselves to more conversation with a child on each page.

The illustrations are cute but somewhat realistic looking.

Arctic fox cubs

I did think the final animal, the panda, didn't seem to fit in with others since they are mainly arctic or tundra animals and pandas are not. It seemed really random.

Overall, though, I thought the book was really cute and simple enough to hold really young children's attention, but I also really appreciated that they didn't completely dumb down the vocabulary in the book.

2018 Book #1 - I Broke My Trunk!

Mo Willems has to be one of my favorite children's author. The Elephant & Piggie book I Broke My Trunk didn't disappoint. I read this book to my son today and had him laughing out loud.

Gerald comes to see Piggie, who asks him about his nose as it's all wrapped up. He says he broke it. When Piggie asks how he broke it, he goes into a "long crazy story."

Even after he tells about holding two hippos, a rhino, and a piano on his trunk, Gerald explains to Piggie that still isn't how he broke his trunk. The ending is funny and surprising.

One of the best parts of this Elephant and Piggie book is the illustrations and seeing the facial expressions of Elephant as he tells his story and Piggie as she listens and asks questions.

Elephant & Piggie stories are told completely through dialogue and the illustrations. The illustrations are usually just the characters and whatever props they may be using. There are typically not any backgrounds for the pictures, so things like facial expressions are very important. This was one of my favorite pages:

These books are very fun to read aloud, especially doing different voices for the different characters. My boys also love when I make sound effects for the characters when they aren't actually saying dialogue. I usually make a face to go along with it. For example, the face Piggie's making in the picture above was one that I made with a face. My son got a kick out of that.

These books are great for kids of all ages. My two youngest, ages 15 months and 2, loved this book today when I read it to them. I've had first graders read them over and over again, and even one of my third-graders a couple years back loved to check these books out from the library. I think they're hilarious and are great books even for adults. And they tell great stories about two friends who really care about each other.