Gaps are an opportunity The homeschool Facebook groups are all abuzz with temporary homeschool moms who want to know what curriculum to buy in order to reintegrate seamlessly with the public school system when it finally opens again. They are homeschooling with good reason; the schools are failing to provide a good education. They know…
Learning is work Yes, learning is work. But it is leisurely work. It is the kind of work that can be savored and enjoyed most of the time. It is the kind of work that can be accomplished through play. Sure there will be occasional times of frustration when a child does not understand something…
(Copy bottom of content from Learning is Work draft.) So you bought a giant shiny box of homeschool curriculum. It looked amazing in the catalog. Great literature, history, science, and a schedule telling you exactly what to do when. No more weekends or evenings spent planning. It was an open and go choice. But your…
How to tell if your kid is being lazy and how to help them overcome it. We cannot see inside our child’s mind. What seems simple and easy to us, as adults, could be taking a great deal of cognitive effort for them. This does not mean there is anything wrong with their brain. It just…
Four ways to make information sticky We cannot store every piece of information our brain encounters in our memory. How does it decide what needs to be remembered? Well, since our brain likes to avoid thought, if we spend a lot of time thinking about something, our brain decides to store it. Our brain listens…
We all know social skills are important for our kids to learn. Often we think a child will automatically receive stellar social skills from simply being in schools. It seems logical, they are around others all day, so they must be learning how to interact well with others. It is a theory of osmosis. Unfortunately,…
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So learning all this stuff about neuroscience, cognitive science, and functional brain theory is fun, right? But the thing is, it is only useful if we can see how all this knowledge should be affecting our daily lives. With that in mind, I am dedicating my weekly blog posts in November to addressing some of…
Our surroundings matter. If we are in a place where we feel safe, our brain is less likely to rush into fight or flight mode. This is why, if we want to subtly spark curiosity in our kids, it is best not to put everything away behind cupboard doors or neatly sorted on the bookshelves….
The teaching brain has a lot in common with the learning brain. They both need space in working memory and to support that space they need background knowledge so they can take advantage of long-term memory and automaticity. Teaching is a cognitive skill. One of the main differences between a teacher's brain and a student's…