Wonder World Classroom

When Do I Teach ______?

Part 1 of a 3-part series on using Teachable Moments to boost a child's learning experience.


A frequent topic of discussion among homeschoolers is what they need to be teaching when. On the groups I belong to I see questions like,

*What should my kindergartener know by the end of the first year?

*Is it too soon to start teaching my child to write?

*What if my child ends a school year not knowing___(insert random item here)?

One of the amazing things I've discovered about unschooling is the ability to use "teachable moments" to address the above issues.

What's a teachable moment? The time when an individual is most likely to retain specific information. This moment varies greatly from person to person, and in the same person depending on situation. It's something I learned as an adult educator, but it applies just as much to children. And because teachable moments are different for everyone, the technique is impossible to employ across the board in a public or private school setting.

To understand teachable moments, let me first mention a few moments I have found are definitely NOT teachable moments for kids (or anyone, for that matter):

1. When they are hungry
2. When they are cranky
3. When they are in pain
4. When they are distracted by something more compelling

I don't find these the best times to teach a child, unless, of course, you are teaching them about what it's like to feel hungry, cranky, etc.

Great! you say. So does that mean any other time is teachable? Not quite. The above covers some of the WHEN for teaching, but not the WHAT. To truly discover What goes When, a parent must watch their child for easy to spot clues. These clues will answer one special question:

What I Want To Learn MOST Right Now Is ______.

Fill in the blank, and you'll have your child's teachable moments handed to you.

Let's use a typical parenting example to explain what I mean. Mom decides to teach Johnny, her pre-teen, to wash the dishes. He argues, rolls his eyes and offers groans of resistance the whole way. It becomes an unpleasant task for all.

Now, let's back up several years to Johnny as a preschooler. Every time Mom walks into the kitchen, he's begging her to let him help. One day she complies, and finds herself with a captive audience who gives dish washing lessons his full attention, then wants to wield the feather duster and broom, too!

Sure, 11-year-old Johnny may be more capable of washing dishes, but which child will internalize and retain the lesson more willingly? Thus, letting preschool Johnny learn What He Most Wanted To Learn Right Now is a prime example of using the "teachable moment." (Of course, this does not guarantee he will never roll his eyes or groan when asked to do the dishes at age 1l, just that he will be an expert at getting them done quick because he learned HOW during a willing moment.)


This same approach can be used in the homeschool setting in place of, or in addition to, calendar agendas to determine what to teach. Part 2 of this series will show how to apply teachable moments to the classroom.

Until then remember---in a homeschooling family, class is never dismissed! Keep on learning...

Bri with her dad, taking part in our carefully constructed music program...on Christmas Day.

The subect of curriculum came up on one of my homeschooler discussion groups, and it inspired me to post. Anyone who has homeschooled a child has come across, shall I say, "public opinion" on the matter. Mention the "H" word and see raised brows, dropped jaws, perhaps a narrowed gaze of suspicion. Then come the comments. "How?" "That must be so hard!" "Is that even legal?" And for those a step ahead, "But where do you get your curriculum?"

While all homeschoolers have faced this battery of skeptical inquisition, those who teach a "reputable" curriculum with a distinguished-sounding name can at least provide a fast and ready answer to the naysayers. Now imagine those wary expressions when a family like ours says, "Oh, we don't use a curriculum. We're UNschooling."

What?? NO curriculum? The stunned faces practically ooze thoughts of what unintelligent, illogical, and downright irresponsible parents we must be to leave our child's education--their future--to fate! Don't we CARE that our child will grow up to be illiterate?

But we are none of these things, least of all uncaring. We care so much that we've carefully contstructed our child's education around her unique personality, learning style, and needs--an utterly one of a kind curriculum designed exactly to fit HER. No cookie cutter, one-size-fits-some path was going to be the best route for Bri, so we're clearing a path of our own.

Our school runs year round, 365 days a year, from waking until bed (and probably beyond). We never stop teaching or learning, one from the other, though we don't spend hours sitting around designing clever worksheets or making up math drills. Our classroom is the world, our curriculum is LIFE. Talking, singing, playing, cooking, gardening, reading...everything we do imparts knowledge taught in a classroom--and many things that aren't. Our "curriculum" is distinctly short on worksheets and flash cards, and we use no textbooks. Scandalous, I know!

Our curriculum includes:

1. Our museum membership. I have one of the few 5-year-olds I know of who will beg to visit the museum on a sunny Saturday morning.

2. Faithful visits to the local library. This not only involves a selection of books--which are entirely of Bri's choosing, and sometimes includes "educational" volumes about animals, the environment, or science--but also a necessary visit with a giant rock outside, running through the trees, and a trip to the fountain beside the adjacent Lincoln Memorial Shrine.

3. Supermarket Math. Much of our math "drills" involve numbers in their native habitats, including base concepts like "we need three apples and I'm holding one. How many more?" as well as more complex thoughts like "from this aisle, which item is closer, eggs or cereal?" and "which is the better buy?" At age 5 Bri has yet to read numbers, but she can tell you at the library that if I'm holding three books, she needs three more to make six.

4. Science at play. Scientific principles can be taught by making ice cream or noodles, or while visiting a park playground. My pre-reader can already explain the differences between the different states of matter (liquid, solid, gas).

5. Artist in residence. One of our regrets about public education is the lack of fine arts programs. Yet Bri gets to apprentice constantly in an environment where an artist, actor, singer, sculptor, director, and author resides.

6. Computer science by way of her desktop computer, which she has set up to be independent in use despite pre-reading and writing.

7. Spontaneous writing. After abandonding writing drills long prior to beginning our kindergarten unschooling adventure, Bri spontaneously developed an interest after hearing how artists label their work. Most all her art is now "signed" with her first name, and while her B looks more like an O or an 8 at present she's almost taught herself to write her name--with help whenever she wants.

Our approach? For the most part, we allow life's natural circumstances and current topics of interest generate learning situations. This has worked better for Brianna than anything tried thus far. When she's gun-ho, we go for it. When she pulls back, we move onto something else.

Take reading. Since birth there have been bedtime stories, library times, and made up tales. When she was of an age I felt required me to "teach" her the alphabet, I tried flash cards, fridge magnets, educational television, alphabet soup, manipulatives, an ABC's placemat, and learning DVD's. Nothing worked. Then I learned about unschooling, and dropped alphabet fairly altogether in favor of more vitally NOW concepts of interest. Then a few weeks ago, we ran across learning posters at the dollar store. Bri was THRILLED. We posted them and offered her a sticker for each letter she learned to read. Two weeks after starting this, she's mastered 11 letters.

Bri can tell you why rest is important during illness and describe the role of white blood cells, courtesy of a cold that struck over the holidays. She knows the parts of a plant and their growth requirements, courtesy of our deck garden. And she knows a great deal about bees, after their visits to us in the pool all summer sparked an interest in a bee unit study. She has awareness of environmental concerns, and why we must care for the earth by recycling and turning off lights. She learns constantly, and is never tired of the process.

So now, when people ask that loaded, "But what curriculum?" question, we have an answer. "We use a comprehensively designed, one of a kind, dynamic multileveled learning program that is custom created for Bri's constantly changing learning needs." Most people won't have a clue what any of that means, but the above is given with enough gusto and long words to show that we are not unintelligent, uncaring parents. Those clever enough to decipher the above code...well, those are generally folks who are easily sold on the idea of creative, alternative education.

Class dismissed. ;)

We just completed an intensive, all-consuming and vital unit study at Wonder World Academy...Birthday 101. That's right, we treated Brianna's birthday as a serious educational opportunity, and we were able to cover all school subjects through the planning and execution of a 5th birthday party!

This is one of the things I absolutely love about running a homeschool..."sneaking" in classwork without my child ever being aware she's in learning mode, because we're all having so much fun. It's even better than that private thrill a mom gets when she sneaks pureed vegetables into the spaghetti sauce and watches her kids devour it.

Just a few subjects we "taught" over the course of her birthday extravaganza:

Home Skills

Brianna did some hands-on homemaking tasks, including cooking, cleaning, and serving her guests. One of her gifts was a set of lace-up alphabet cards, to introduce beginner sewing skills (as well as some letter reinforcement).

Math

We used many aspects of her party as an opportunity to teach math and counting skills. Counting balloons as we blew them up, measuring ingredients for her party food, estimating mini m&m's to decorate the tops of her cupcakes, counting the number of guests, counting and subtracting presents (how many, now you opened one, how many are left?), etc. And of course there were also time concepts explored here--how many days/weeks/hours left until the party, how much longer until the party is over, how many minutes until time to open gifts, etc.

Science

Since she wanted to make her own cupcakes, baking is always a great time for a hands-on chemistry lesson. We also had some weather issues discussed that day--half the party was outside, half in, and the day was very hot and wind picked up and played havoc with decorations.

Art

A lot can be done for art around a birthday! Making invitations is a natural, and decorations or party favors, of course. When it's someone else's special day, making gifts or the wrapping paper is also fun. With Bri, she helped with her decorations, and was kept busy during some of the "how much LONGER?" moments by giving her crafts to do.

Reading

We read several birthday-related stories prior to the big day, plus we used streamers with "Happy Birthday" words and decorated her pumpkin with words for letter/word recognition, used Happy Birthday words in her bedroom decor, and showed her directions as they were read (she's not reading on her own yet) for her cupcakes and decorations as needed.

Social Studies

This included social expectations and traditions at a party--being a polite host to guests, the order that activities typically occur, how certain birthday traditions came about, and just plain interacting with her extended family and friends made this a wonderful lesson in social studies. What's more, as part of the day's party we hosted a canned food drive to benefit a local charity...so her special day became about giving as much as receiving.

Phys Ed

Racing around upstairs and down to set up, doing party games and playing hostess was a good way to run off some steam!


Part of being a good hostess is making sure ALL your guests get fed--even your newborn niece!

When I was new to the idea of home schooling (nearly 20 years ago), I didn't feel capable of flinging caution to the wind and launching headlong into a learning odyssey. Instead I kept a close tie to the public school, using their "approved" curriculum. Every morning I dutifully sat the children (all of them, regardless of age) at the table for "lesson time," and once a week ushered them to a meeting with the districts' chosen teacher to "supervise" our progress. In the end, I felt it was MY ability being tested, not my children's.

Well, that's the official version, anyway. Even in those early Nervous Nellie days, I found myself rebelling and veering off into the uncharted waters of learning for the sheer joy of it. In our backyard dirt, the dinner table, and the grocery store we found endless and fascinating curricula for science, math, history, and reading. In these "classrooms," the children's eyes never glazed over with confusion, their attention never wavered, and they never had to ask, "when are we going to be done with this WORK so we can play?" In these settings, play was serious work...and learning was play.

Fast forward twenty years, and I'm a much different home schooling animal. Brianna does not sit through rote instruction, nor boring-but-necessary "lessons" at the table. Oh sure, we sit there--to eat, talk, draw, sculpt, glue, cut, work with letters, and many other things. But this is not class "work." To be sure, Bri is learning with every blueberry she counts out to make smileys in her bowl of oatmeal, and with every saved popsicle stick added to a model dinosaur "skeleton." But before long we rise and leave that tiny space behind...and take learning with us everywhere we go.

Math and reading and science need not take place with my busy, kinesthetic learner planted in her seat, kicking a foot impatiently against the chair leg while wishing it was over already. When the world is your classroom "table," your child's eye never stops looking for things to absorb, and their questions never fail to keep a childlike wonder from your own eyes. There is never the problem or challenge of how to get the kids motivated or how to keep them interested.

In short, it jump starts a child's natural inclination to be a happy, willingly self-motivated learner.

Here's Bri learning about "snow" for the very first time (we live in a hot climate). Good science activity for early study in solids vs liquids, slippery vs not, cold vs hot, etc. Also a good art project--she sculpted all kinds of things in that snow. Considering this was a scorching 95-degree summer day, these were explored by Bri MOST gratefully. ("Snow" courtesy of the LA County Fair.)

A petting zoo is pretty much a "gimme" activity for animal science, but what a great place for math! Counting/grouping/sorting animals, counting out feed pellets for each, etc. Also reading (signs with important instructions--"exit," "don't feed donkeys," etc) and health ed (why are there hand washing/sanitizing stations just outside the exit?). This was also at the county fair.

And yes, I absolutely count Bri's trips down the giant slide and later turn on the whirling roller coaster ride as an object lesson in physics and centrifugal force. :)

What's this picture doing in a blog about home schooling, you ask? Believe it or not, this shot was taken during a lesson. Daddy got a nerf gun for his birthday (hey, you're never too old to play!) and Bri begged to try. Instead of merely letting her run hither and yon, we used this as an opportunity to do some backwards and forwards math calculations--how many foam darts did you shoot? How many are left before you run out? Did you find them all, or are some still missing? Not to mention some basic velocity tests.

Bottom line, when learning has captured the imagination of parent and child alike, everything is an opportunity to educate, and every educational task is an opportunity for fun. Sure, we have texts and worksheets and other such classroom gadgetry. But there's not a lesson out there that can't be learned in some joyous, exciting manner that is so personal to our daughter that she can't help but be moved by it. I can't wait to see what we are going to learn next.