Posted in Homeschooling
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So, how is that I'm comfortable? How do I know that my kids are learning in our very relaxed environment?
Well, it takes time. I cannot evaluate each day, nor even each week. I've found that it takes about a month for information that went in to come back out. I would imagine that during that time, the child is digesting the information, comparing it to other information previously gathered, and testing that information against various theories.
About one month after reading a book on spiders, Rachel might see one outside, study it for a few minutes, then come to me and spend 10 minutes telling me everything she knows about spiders. Telling me those things is also known as narration. She will, in fact, often tell me things I didn't know about spiders. If ask where she heard something, she can tell me which book it was in.
It also takes about a month to see advances in language arts learning, particularly reading and spelling. The improvements made on a daily basis are so small that I don't notice them. But if I look back over time, I see vast improvement.
Vocabulary development also takes time. After hearing words used correctly (again and again) children will adopt those words as their own. (So watch out! ;) )
I evaluate math learning less by looking at work books and more by looking at reasoning and estimating skills. For example today, Rebecca said, "I've done two rows of four math problems. That means I've done eight problems." That statement told me more about her mathematical thinking than anything in that workbook. |
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Posted by Anonymous