Since blogging about our learning centers this has been one of my most asked questions. I will try to shed some light on how we go about planning for each of our learning center topics of study.
I am paraphrasing poorly here but to make a strong point, Charlotte Mason spoke a lot about how children learn best when they develop a relationship with their subject matter. When this is allowed to happen the child comes up with their own thoughts and ideas and connections. She really reinforced the idea that children were not buckets to be filled but fires to be ignited. When my children begin to develop a relationship with a certain subject matter, it then becomes my job as their teacher to take them beyond that "how neat" level and to supply ample resources so as to encourage that relationship on a deeper level. Please keep in mind we have only just begun this process of using learning centers and 'instruction cards' in the last six weeks so it will probably change over time and with experience.
I try to think of my unit studies like an onion. The first layer is very simplistic (for my younger ones) then I add to them layer by layer. What exactly do I assign on my 'instruction cards' for each student? Well, this has been a combination of my initial brainstorming ideas, and then as we research and learn more about a topic, I add more spontaneous ideas as they arise.
Please believe me when I say I am by no means an *expert* on any particular topic, and yes there are times I have allowed myself to get intimidated by this overwhelming realization. This is when I need to step back, humble myself to our Lord in prayer and trust in Him. Then just by taking those trusting baby steps I find myself learning alongside my children which then enables me to teach them what they may not fully comprehend. Although I have to admit those little sponges can absorb more information than me, and many times I end up learning from them!!
One evening the kids and I sat down at the dining room table and brainstormed a list of topics we wanted to study. I took those topics and divided them out between all of the learning centers. Then I printed these lists and posted one at each center. Now I have something to refer to when one topic is finishing up and we don't have another one lined up from some rabbit trail. When a topic of study is almost completed, and by that I mean the kids are around two projects away from finishing their 'instruction cards', I usually take one or two weekends to do what I call my 4Rs Brainstorming. My 4Rs include Research, Reading, Recording and Reporting. I will attempt to show you how I do this....
Since we are finishing up our Science & Nature: cricket unit study I will use this center as my example today. First, I have to say God works in mysterious ways, because one topic that I wanted to cover this year in our Science & Nature Center was a more in depth study on "insects". Well, about a month ago after the weather started warming up the kids started finding and collecting crickets. That is when I decided to just go with that rabbit trail. Right now, we have almost finished all of our projects for that unit study so I have been 4R brainstorming how I could take the next steps to further our studies on insects in general. Here is where God intervened because just this past weekend the kids took a new interest in finding and collecting bees, grasshoppers, moths, pill bugs, and snails. (The latter two are not insects, but they will make good rabbit trails.)
RESEARCH - Using our Peterson Insect Guide, our Pets in Jar, a library book from our crickets study called Keeping Minibeasts: Grasshoppers and Crickets, and our Creepy Crawlies book as references I had Aravis and Jill make some terrariums for the grasshoppers and pill bugs. Then I briefly visited http://www.enchantedlearning.com/ where I printed out some wonderful labeling pictures and information for the younger kids. Next week I will do more in depth research with the older kids at http://www.unitedstreaming/ and other Internet websites. I will also stop by the 4Reallearning Bulletin Forums and see if there are any resources I can use. Next I will look through Pilgrims of the Holy Family, and last but definitely not least we will research the library catalog to add those layers I mentioned earlier.
READING - I will look for picture books, whole books, and non-fiction books on these topics. Hopefully some interesting biographies on entomologists will arise in our researching.
RECORDING - I think I will use our Hands-On Science Insect kit from Homeschool Science for some more hands on activities with the kids and see what experiments we can find in Creepy Crawlies. The kids can do any or all of the following:
- create title pages on each insect for their notebooks
- create web graphs
- make Venn diagrams on the differences and similarities between the different insects
- sketch drawings in their nature journals and label, finding the Latin names
- complete written or orally dictated narrations on everything they learned about a specific insect
